Ro Khanna says this ‘document dump does not comply with’ law to compel full release of Epstein files
“The justice department’s document dump this afternoon does not comply with Thomas Massie and my Epstein Transparency Act,” Ro Khanna, the California Democratic congressman who co-wrote the law requiring full disclosure of all of the government’s investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein by Friday, said in a video statement posted on social media.
By way of example, Khanna noted: “They released one document from a New York grand jury of a 119 pages totally blacked out! This despite a New York judge ordering them to release that document, and our law requires them to explain redactions. There’s not a single explanation for why that entire document was redacted.”
“We have not seen the draft indictment,” Khanna added, “that implicates other rich and powerful men who were on Epstein’s rape island, who either watched the abuse of young girls or participated in the abuse of young girls.”
“It is an incomplete release, with too many redactions. Thomas Massie and I are exploring all options,” Khanna said, including the impeachment of justice department officials, finding them in contempt of Congress, “or referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”
Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican congressman who co-wrote the legislation, shared Khanna’s video statement on social media, with the comment that the document release by Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who previously served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law” that Trump signed, “just 30 days ago”.
Updated at 20.02 EST
Key events
Show key events only
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Closing summary
We are pausing our live coverage of the justice department’s partial release of heavily redacted documents from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than 15 years. We will continue reporting on what’s in the files, and disquiet over what has not been released in the days and weeks ahead. Here is some of what we learned:
The justice department appears to be in violation of the law that required the release of all of the Epstein files by a Friday deadline, according to the two congressmen who drafted the legislation, Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican.
Khanna said that the partial “document dump this afternoon does not comply” with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and told CNN, “The most important documents are missing.” Those documents are a draft 60-count federal indictment outlining charges against Epstein that was drawn up by a federal prosecutor in Florida in 2007, and a detailed memorandum summarizing the evidence that was disregarded by the US attorney, Alex Acosta, who chose instead to offer Epstein an extraordinarily lenient plea deal.
“Attorney General Pam Bondi is withholding specific documents that the law required her to release by today,” Massie said, and suggested that she could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice by a future administration.
Jennifer Freeman, a lawyer who represents the Epstein survivor Maria Farmer in her lawsuit against the federal government, told our colleague Victoria Bekiempis that one newly released document was important: an FBI report from 1996, documenting Farmer’s effort to report her abuse by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. “Maria Farmer reported Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes in 1996,” Freeman said. “Had the government done their job, and properly investigated Maria’s report, over 1,000 victims could have been spared and 30 years of trauma avoided.”
There were many images of Bill Clinton, but very little about Trump in the portion of the files released on Friday. But one seemingly innocuous snapshot of Epstein’s bookcase did include a reminder that he and Trump were once close. The image showed Epstein’s copy of Trump’s 1997 book, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, which the New York Times reported in July included an inscription from Trump reading: “To Jeff – You are the greatest!”
Updated at 14.50 EST
One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims has accused the justice department of stalling.
Lisa Phillips was in her 20s when she met the disgraced financier and says she suffered years of abuse from him and people linked to him.
She told CNN that she believes the Department of Justice was “protecting themselves, not the victims,” after Trump officials released only partial files that were heavily redacted.
“I feel like they have so much information to start connecting the dots and for survivors to get justice. But as you’re seeing, we just keep stalling,” she added.
Share‘The most important documents are missing’, Ro Khanna says
“The most important documents are missing,” Ro Khanna, the Democratic representative who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act with Thomas Massie, a Republican, told CNN on Friday night.
“What we found out is the most important documents are missing,” Khanna said. “They’ve had excessive redactions, and the central question that Americans want to know – who are the other rich and powerful men on the island, raping these young girls or covering up – has not been answered.”
Khanna confirmed that the release does not appear to include either of the two documents the survivors of Epstein’s abuse told lawmakers they want to see: a 60-count federal indictment outlining charges against Epstein that was drawn up by a federal prosecutor in Florida in 2007, and a detailed memorandum summarizing the evidence she had assembled in support of the charges.
Two months after those charges were drawn up, the US attorney in Florida, Alex Acosta, instead offered Epstein an extraordinary deal: that he would not be prosecuted on federal charges if he agreed to plead guilty to lesser state charges, serve a minimum of two years’ incarceration, register as a sex offender and make some financial amends.
Acosta went on to serve as Donald Trump’s first secretary of labor, from 2017 to 2019, until a new federal investigation into Epstein prompted his resignation.
Exactly why Acosta offered Epstein that deal has never been fully explained, and was criticized in a scathing 2020 review by the justice department’s office of professional responsibility, which found that Acosta’s office “improperly resolved a federal investigation into the criminal conduct of Jeffrey Epstein by negotiating and executing a federal non-prosecution agreement”.
Khanna told CNN that “Thomas Massie and I explicitly drafted” the law “to cover those two documents”.
After Khanna’s appearance, Massie shared video of the interview, with the comment: “Attorney General Pam Bondi is withholding specific documents that the law required her to release by today.”
Updated at 23.39 EST
In a snapshot of an Epstein bookcase, a reminder of his friendship with Trump
Although there appears to be nothing that incriminates the president in the documents released on Friday from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender whom Donald Trump socialized with for more than 15 years, one seemingly innocuous snapshot of a bookcase does include a reminder that the two men were once close.
The photograph of an ornate bookcase, apparently from one of Epstein’s properties, shows a copy of one of Trump’s books, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, partially hidden behind what looks like a Ming vase.
A photograph of a bookcase in the Epstein files released on Friday, 19 December 2025. Photograph: Department of Justice
In July, the New York Times reported that Trump had inscribed Epstein’s copy of that book with the handwritten note: “To Jeff – You are the greatest!”
The message, photographed by the Times, was signed “Donald” and dated “Oct ’97”, the month the book was published.
Another book in the case, on a shelf at the upper right, is a less flattering appraisal of the other president Epstein was friendly with: Bill Clinton. That book is High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, an anti-Clinton screed by the rightwing author Ann Coulter.
Updated at 23.36 EST
Pam Bondi could be convicted of obstruction of justice over partial release of redacted files, Massie says
Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, wrote on social media that the attorney general, Pam Bondi, could be convicted by a future justice department of obstruction of justice if she violated a provision of the law by redacting the names of government officials.
Massie was responding to a Fox News report that the names of more than a dozen “politically exposed people and government officials” had been redacted in the hundreds of thousands of pages from the investigation into the late sex offender that were released on Friday.
Massie noted that the law explicitly states that no documents may be “withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official”.
According to Fox News, however, the justice department redacted the names and identifiers of victims and “the same redaction standards were applied to politically exposed individuals and government officials”.
After the Fox report stirred complaints from Massie and others, the deputy tttorney general, Todd Blanche, called the outlet to insist that the justice department is “not redacting the names of any politicians.”
Updated at 22.06 EST
‘This is far from over,’ AOC says, calling partial release of Epstein files a ‘coverup’
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic representative from New York, accused the Trump administration of a coverup following that partial release of heavily redacted documents from federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than a decade.
“Now the coverup is out in the open,” AOC wrote on social media. “This is far from over. Everyone involved will have to answer for this. Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, whole admin. Protecting a bunch of rapists and pedophiles because they have money, power, and connections. Bondi should resign tonight.”
Updated at 21.52 EST
Documents include civil complaint from Epstein victim who said she was introduced to Trump
Among the references to Donald Trump in the documents released on Friday is one in a lawsuit filed against Epstein’s estate in 2020 by a woman who alleged that she had been recruited by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at a summer camp in Michigan in 1994 when she was 13.
The lawsuit alleged that the girl, known in court records as Jane Doe, was introduced to Trump by Epstein later that year, when she was 14. According to the complaint:
During one of Doe’s encounters with Epstein, he took her to Mar-a-Lago where he introduced her to its owner, Donald J Trump. Introducing 14-year-old Doe to Donald J Trump, Epstein elbowed Trump playfully asking him, referring to Doe: “This is a good one, right?” Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. They both chuckled and Doe felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why.
The case reportedly ended in a settlement with Epstein’s estate.
In 2021, the same victim testified at Maxwell’s trial and said that she had been a contestant in the 1998 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant, which was then owned by Trump.
In 2016, five contestants in the 1997 edition of the Miss Teen USA pageant told BuzzFeed News that Trump had entered the contestants’ dressing room while they were changing.
Updated at 21.50 EST
Epstein survivor Annie Farmer outraged by ‘how many people were harmed’ after FBI failed to act on her sister’s 1996 complaint about Epstein
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Annie Farmer, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein at the age of 16, got emotional when describing her feelings at finally seeing, among the documents released on Friday, the original 1996 FBI report documenting her sister Maria’s first attempt to report Epstein to the authorities.
The newly released FBI document, which we reported on earlier, “described Epstein stealing photos of myself, at the age of 16, and my younger sister, who was 12 at the time”, Farmer said.
“And just to see it in writing and to know that they had this document this entire time,” Farmer said, overcome by emotion, “and how many people were harmed after that date, it just, you know we’ve been saying it over and over, but to see it in black and white that way, has been very emotional.”
“I’m with Maria today,” she continued. “I know she felt a tremendous amount of relief and redemption but also sorrow, in thinking about people like Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who are not here to see this,” referring to one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, who died this year.
Giuffre said in a legal complaint that she was hired away from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa by Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16. Giuffre also alleged in her complaint that she was first abused by Epstein and Maxwell together, and then “lent out to other powerful men”, including the former Prince Andrew.
“I still have the questions about, did they not take it seriously,” Farmer said about the FBI, “or were they protecting Epstein because of whatever relationship he had with the government. There’s just so many questions and why we hope for more transparency.”
Annie Farmer played a prominent role in campaigning for the full release of the investigative files on Epstein and appeared in a public service announcement last month with other survivors who held photographs of themselves as young girls at the time they were sexually exploited by Epstein and Maxwell.
A public service announcement featuring Epstein survivors.Share
Updated at 21.20 EST
Bill Clinton’s spokesperson accuses White House of pointing to former president’s Epstein ties to distract from Trump’s
The partial release of files from the justice department on Friday includes heavy redactions and scant references to Donald Trump, but many images of Bill Clinton, the former president Trump has claimed, without evidence, was closer to Jeffrey Epstein than him.
Angel Ureña, a spokesperson for Clinton, accused the Trump White House of trying to focus attention on the former president while concealing evidence of the current one’s ties to the late sex offender in a statement posted on social media.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be. Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” Ureña said.
“There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats,” Ureña added.
In an interview with Vanity Fair published earlier this week, and which Ureña referenced, Trump’s White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, admitted that “there is no evidence” for the unsourced claim Trump has been making for years: that Clinton visited Epstein’s notorious private island in the Caribbean. Wiles also said that the files she had seen contained no damning evidence about Clinton. “The president was wrong about that,” she said.
Updated at 20.44 EST
David Smith
The disappointment was palpable. In February, a group of 15 rightwing influencers visited the White House and paraded binders labelled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1”, only to discover that they contained precious little that was new.
Ten months later, it was the world’s turn. Amid huge global anticipation on Friday, the US justice department released hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The Trump administration is the most transparent in history,” proclaimed Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, insisting that it had “done more for the victims [of Epstein] than Democrats ever have”.
But it soon became apparent that, once again, Donald Trump had overpromised and underdelivered. Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said: “What they have released is clearly incomplete and appears to be over-redacted to boot.”
The documents extensively featured photos of former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Moreover, Friday’s release was far from complete. The US deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said “several hundred thousand” documents would be made public on Friday, but that the need to protect victims meant thousands more would be released over the next couple of weeks. The initial release also appeared to include far less than Blanche promised.
Updated at 19.59 EST