Epstein files released by US Department of Justice
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The news: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) released fields from investigations into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday afternoon in Washington (8:00am Saturday).
The context: The disclosure comes after US Congress passed legislation last month requiring the department to make the files public. The Epstein Transparency Act compelled the DOJ to release all of the files by 11:59pm ET Friday (2:59pm AEDT Saturday).
Trump had resisted the move but signed the bill following pressure for Republican lawmakers. Small releases of images from the files have been published in recent weeks.
It is not immediately clear how much new material is available on the DOJ’s website which features a new page titled “Epstein Library”. The page has a search box to search for keywords through the files.
Immediate efforts to search the library using keywords including ‘Epstein’, ‘Trump’, ‘Clinton’ generated no result messages.
Earlier on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News: “I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today…I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple weeks,” Blanche said. “I expect several hundred thousand more.”
Blanche said the DOJ was reviewing each file to redact names and identities of Epstein’s victims.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed the DOJ, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Blanche for the partial release plan, saying: “The law Congress passed and President Trump signed was clear as can be — the Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some,” Schumer said in a statement. Failing to do so is breaking the law.”
The sources: Department of Justice, Bloomberg, CNBC, WSJ
