By ERIC TUCKER, MICHAEL R. SISAK and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on\u00a0Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier\u2019s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.<\/p>\n Deputy Attorney General\u00a0Todd Blanche<\/a>\u00a0said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department\u2019s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.<\/p>\n They were disclosed under\u00a0the Epstein Files Transparency Act<\/a>, the law enacted after\u00a0months of public and political pressure<\/a>\u00a0that requires the government to\u00a0open its files<\/a>\u00a0on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,\u201d Blanche said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.<\/p>\n After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n Among the materials being withheld is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of personal details about potential victims. All women other than Maxwell have been redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said.<\/p>\n The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to roughly six million, including duplicates, the department said.<\/p>\n The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents\u00a0just before Christmas<\/a>, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.<\/p>\n Those records included previously released flight logs showing that Donald Trump flew on Epstein\u2019s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several\u00a0photographs of former President Bill Clinton<\/a>. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.<\/p>\n Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.<\/p>\n Epstein\u00a0killed himself in a New York jail cell<\/a>\u00a0in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.<\/p>\n In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, but the U.S. attorney\u2019s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.<\/p>\n In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is\u00a0serving a 20-year prison sentence<\/a>\u00a0at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein\u2019s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.<\/p>\n Among the people she accused was Britain\u2019s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal titles. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n