{"id":194656,"date":"2025-12-20T10:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T10:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/194656\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T10:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T10:24:07","slug":"trickle-release-of-epstein-files-on-a-friday-signals-move-to-bury-trump-ties-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/194656\/","title":{"rendered":"Trickle release of Epstein files on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

The justice department\u2019s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s connection to Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the department raced towards a legally mandated Friday deadline to release its files, little emerged about what it planned to release. There never really seemed to be a doubt that the department would release the files late on Friday afternoon, deploying the well-worn Washington trick of burying unflattering news before a weekend.<\/p>\n

Then, on Friday morning, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, went on Fox News to say<\/a> that the department wouldn\u2019t actually be releasing all of the files on Friday as required by the law. \u201cI expect that we\u2019re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,\u201d Blanche said on Fox News. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time the department eventually did release thousands of pages of materials on Friday evening \u2013 not the hundreds of thousands Blanche promised – many of the documents had been heavily or completely redacted. Other than a few pictures, the materials made no mention of Trump, even though attorney general Pam Bondi reportedly told<\/a> Trump earlier this year his name was in the files.<\/p>\n

The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files \u2013 something encouraged in large part by the Maga base \u2013 while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends<\/a> with Epstein for years before they had a falling out. Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks \u2013 a holiday period \u2013 a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.<\/p>\n

Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the law to release the files, was one of many members of Congress to express outrage. He said on Twitter<\/a> that the release \u201cgrossly fails to comply\u201d with the statute.<\/p>\n

The justice department did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump Administration is the most transparent in history. By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee\u2019s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein\u2019s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have,\u201d Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Epstein Files Transparency Act<\/a>, the law that mandates the release of the materials, requires attorney general Pam Bondi to submit within 15 days of the document release a report detailing all categories of the records and a summary of the redactions made and their legal basis. It\u2019s unclear whether that report will be delayed since the records will be released on a rolling basis.<\/p>\n

While Trump barely made an appearance in Friday\u2019s release, Bill Clinton appears in several images. The Daily Wire, a Trump-friendly site, obtained<\/a> a photo of Clinton and Epstein on Thursday, a day before the release. Photos of Clinton lounging in a pool and a hot tub were among those released on Friday. Justice department and White House spokespeople were quick to highlight the images on Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeloved Democrat president. The black box is added to protect a victim,\u201d Gates McGavick, a justice department spokesperson, posted alongside<\/a> a photo of Clinton in what seems to be a hot tub with another person whose face is redacted. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted another photo<\/a> of Clinton with someone whose face is redacted and, quoting the song Jumpman by Drake and Future, wrote \u201cthem boys is up to something\u201d.<\/p>\n

Angel Ure\u00f1a, a Clinton spokesperson, released a statement on Friday saying the Trump administration<\/a> was using the former president to try to distract from Trump\u2019s connection to Epstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe White House hasn\u2019t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about what comes next, or from what they\u2019ll try and hide forever,\u201d he said. \u201cSo they can release as many 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn\u2019t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several other celebrities appeared in the images released on Friday, including Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Chris Tucker, David Copperfield and Kevin Spacey. Like Clinton, none has been accused of any crime in connection to Epstein. But their immediate appearance in the files benefits Trump, creating the impression that it was not unusual for famous men to hang out with Epstein.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the strategy did not appease Democrats on Capitol Hill. The party\u2019s leadership roundly decried the limited release, and some calls for Bondi\u2019s ouster emerged. \u201cNow the coverup is out in the open. This is far from over,\u201d the US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote<\/a> on X. \u201cBondi should resign tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The justice department\u2019s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-194656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}