The US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced on Friday that the justice department is releasing more than 3 million pages of documents related to its investigation into disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a testy news conference, Blanche said that the release will include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, which will have “extensive redactions”. He added that the Trump administration has produced roughly 3.5m pages in an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said that they include large quantities of commercial pornography and images “that were seized from Epstein’s devices”.
“The department’s collection effort resulted in more than 6 million pages being identified as potentially responsive, including Department and FBI emails, interview summaries, images, videos and various other materials collected and generated during the various investigations and prosecutions that the act covered,” Blanche said.
A large tranche of documents became available on the Department of Justice website during the news conference.
A letter from the Department of Justice to Congress on Friday explained that the documents were drawn from primary sources spanning over 20 years, including the Florida and New York cases against Epstein, the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution, investigations into Epstein’s death, and multiple FBI investigations. The department has also filed court motions to release additional materials currently covered by protective orders from a civil lawsuit and grand jury materials from a case against corrections officers who worked where Epstein died.
Blanche said that what was withheld were personal and medical files, documents depicting death, physical abuse and injury, as well as any depiction of child sexual abuse “that would jeopardize an active federal investigation”. He shared that the department will submit to the House and Senate judiciary committees a report listing “all categories of records released and withheld”.
Approximately 200,000 pages were redacted or withheld based on various legal privileges including attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, according to the letter to Congress.
When asked if there were new names in the document drop, Blanche said he did not have anything to share.
He did say that the release reiterated what “President Trump has said for years …which is detailing his relationship, and lack thereof, with Mr Epstein, and what he thought about Mr Epstein.”
The justice department also established an email inbox for victims to report redaction concerns and will allow members of Congress to view unredacted portions under confidentiality agreements.