WASHINGTON >>The thousands of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department \u200crelated to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were filled with the names of some of the world\u2019s most famous people, including former President Bill Clinton, but there was one notable exception: President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The department released only a partial tranche of the Epstein-related documents in its possession on Friday with much of the information within them redacted, citing the extensive effort required in reviewing the materials and the need to protect Epstein\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s administration was attempting to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress \u200din November that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite Trump\u2019s months-long effort to keep them sealed.<\/p>\n
The absence of references to Trump was notable given that pictures and documents related to him have trickled out of previous Epstein releases for years. Trump\u2019s name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein\u2019s private plane that were part of a first batch of Epstein material the Justice Department released in February, for instance.<\/p>\n
The release also contained other items of note, including a complaint accusing Epstein of \u200binvolvement in \u201cchild pornography\u201d that was filed with the FBI in 1996, long before law enforcement began looking into his misconduct.<\/p>\n
Celebrities who appeared \u200bin photos made available as part of Friday\u2019s release include the late news anchor Walter Cronkite, singers Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, British entrepreneur Richard Branson and the former Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.<\/p>\n
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Many of the photos were undated and provided without context, and none of those figures have been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor also appears in one photo lying across the laps of several women. The \u200dformer Duke of York, who was stripped of his royal title over his ties to Epstein, has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
The scandal surrounding Epstein has \u200bbecome a political wound for Trump, who for years had promoted conspiracy theories about Epstein to his supporters.<\/p>\n
The \u2060material released this week included evidence from several investigations into Epstein, along with photos of Clinton, long scorned by Republicans. But they appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein\u2019s well-publicized friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s before they had a falling out prior to Epstein\u2019s first conviction in 2008.<\/p>\n
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n
One file with a \u2060photo of Trump appeared to have been removed today from the dataset released by the Justice Department. Its absence was noted online by Democrats in the House of Representatives, who demanded an explanation from the administration.<\/p>\n
Later today, more than a dozen files that had been released on Friday were no longer available to be viewed on the Justice Department\u2019s website, according to NPR and the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department and the White House did not immediately respond to queries about missing files.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear how substantive the new materials were, given that many Epstein-related documents have previously been made public since his 2019 death in jail, which was ruled a suicide.<\/p>\n
Many of the files were heavily redacted \u2014 several documents with 100 pages or more were entirely blacked out \u2014 and the Justice Department acknowledged it was still reviewing hundreds of thousands of additional pages \u2060for possible release.<\/p>\n
One of Epstein\u2019s victims, Marina Lacerda, reacted angrily to the large number of redactions and unreleased documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us are infuriated by \u200dthis. It\u2019s another slap in the face. We expected way more,\u201d Lacerda told MS NOW today.<\/p>\n
Last month, Democrats in the House released thousands of emails obtained from Epstein\u2019s estate, including one in which Epstein wrote that Trump \u201cknew about the girls,\u201d without clarifying what that meant. Trump, in response, accused Democrats of promoting the \u201cEpstein Hoax\u201d as a distraction.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department sought to draw attention \u200dto Clinton, with two agency spokespeople posting on social media images that they said showed him with Epstein victims.<\/p>\n
Clinton\u2019s deputy chief of staff, Angel \u200bUrena, said in a statement that the White House was attempting to \u201cshield themselves\u201d from scrutiny by focusing on \u200dthe former president.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn\u2019t about Bill Clinton,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the White House said the release demonstrated its transparency and commitment to justice for Epstein\u2019s victims. But the disclosures occurred only because Congress forced the administration\u2019s hand, after Trump officials declared earlier this year that no more Epstein files would be made public.<\/p>\n
The disclosure law required the Justice Department to turn over information about its handling of the Epstein investigation, including internal reports and emails. None of those materials appeared to be in the batch of documents the government released on Friday.<\/p>\n
The law allowed the Justice Department to withhold personal information about \u200bEpstein\u2019s victims as well as material that would jeopardize an active investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON >>The thousands of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department \u200crelated to the late convicted sex offender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,2413,3,111,452,453],"class_list":["post-361024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-national-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}