The Latest: Justice Department says it’s releasing 3 million pages from its Jeffrey Epstein files

NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said 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’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

Congressional Democrats, who have been key to pushing for the release of case files on Epstein, are arguing that Friday’s release is only about half of the files that have been collected.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law enacted after months of public and political pressure, requires the government to open its files on the convicted sex offender as well as his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

Here's the latest:

The documents contain hundreds of friendly text messages between Epstein and Steve Bannon in the months leading up to Epstein’s suicide in August 2019. Bannon, a conservative activist who had served as Trump’s White House strategist earlier in the president’s first term, bantered over politics with the financier, discussed get-togethers with him over breakfast, lunch or dinner and, on March 29, 2019, asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome: “Is it possible to get your plane here to collect me?”

Epstein told him his pilot and crew “are doing their best” to arrange that flight but if Bannon could find a charter flight instead, “I’m happy to pay.” Apparently in France at the time, Epstein followed up with a text saying: “My guys can pick you up. Come for dinner.” The exchange did not show how that played out. In their communications over months, the two at times touched on a documentary that Bannon was said to be planning to polish Epstein’s sullied reputation.

On June 28, 2019, Epstein messaged Bannon: “Now you can understand why trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you and I are friends.” The context is not discernible from that exchange. Bannon responded: “Dangerous.”

On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges. He was found dead in his cell just over a month later.

The billionaire Tesla founder reached out to Epstein on at least two separate occasions to plan visits to the Caribbean island where many of the allegations of sexual abuse purportedly occurred, according to email chains included in Friday’s document release.

In a late November 2012 exchange, Epstein inquired how many people Musk would like flown by helicopter to the island he owned — Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“Probably just Talulah and me,” Musk responded, referencing his partner at the time, actress Talulah Riley. “What day/night will be the wildest party on =our island?”

Musk messaged Epstein again ahead of a planned trip to the Caribbean in late December 2013. “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays,” he wrote. “Is there a good time to visit?”

Epstein responded by extending an invite for sometime after the New Year holiday.

“play it by ear if you want,” he wrote. “always space for you.”

“I will come and get you,” Epstein wrote in a follow up email.

It’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place.

Spokespersons for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Friday. Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures.

“Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025 when House Democrats released an Epstein calendar with an entry mentioning a potential Musk visit to the island.

To draw attention away from the “large news media presence” outside the jail after Epstein’s death became known, officials concocted a plan.

According to an Aug. 16, 2019, memo, a jail supervisor told FBI agents that several employees had “used boxes and sheets to create what appeared to be a human body.” That was loaded into a white van labeled as belonging to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and media members followed when it left the jail.

But Epstein’s actual body, according to the interview notes, was loaded into a black vehicle, which departed “unnoticed.”

As with many of the documents released Friday, names were blacked out, so the identities of the jail employees were not visible.

The files also include correspondence between the Justice Department and officials at the U.S. embassy in London, which acted as a go-between with officials in the United Kingdom.

In August 2021, a Justice Department attache at the embassy emailed the prosecutors expressing concern about a news article that said Andrew’s refusal to talk to Epstein investigators was “straining relations” between the U.S. and U.K.

The attache, whose name was redacted, wrote: “The Ambassador is concerned about the attached story, and I wanted to see if you have any sense of where this is coming from. Is this coming from victims’ counsel? Anyone in your shop decided to push this?”

The attache also said that a British counterpart had reached out to ask whether a civil lawsuit naming Andrew as a defendant meant the now-former prince was “now a suspect instead of a witness (in British parlance)” in a criminal investigation. The attache said he was going to respond that the lawsuit had no impact on Andrew’s status.

Some of the records also document an attempt by prosecutors in New York to get Mountbatten-Windsor to agree to be interviewed as part of their Epstein sex trafficking probe.

The records include a diplomatic memo, sent to officials in the United Kingdom in April of 2020 where the FBI and prosecutors asked to interview the then-prince under oath. That interview would never take place. Lawyers for Mountbatten-Windsor declined to make him available for questions.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew, was friends with Epstein for years and settled a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed by one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Giuffre claimed that she’d been directed by Epstein to have three different sexual encounters with Mountbatten-Windsor, starting when she was 17.

Mountbatten-Windsor denied her allegations.

The former prince’s name appears at least several hundred times in the documents, sometimes in news clippings, sometimes in Epstein’s private email correspondence and in guest lists for dinners organized by Epstein.

At least one of the files appears to show personal information that was meant to be kept from the public.

It’s an email exchange that appears to be marked for redactions but leaves names and telephone numbers visible. The December 2019 emails captured officials discussing missing surveillance video from the New York jail where Epstein survived an apparent suicide attempt earlier that year.

During Trump’s first term, Epstein emailed Kathy Ruemmler, a lawyer and former Obama White House official, to warn that Democrats should stop demonizing Trump as a Mafia-type figure even as he derided the president as a “maniac.”

“you might want to tell your dem friends that treatin= trump like a mafia don , ignores the fact that he has great dangerous pow.r..” Epstein wrote in a typo-filled email. “tightening the noose too slowly, risks a very bad =ituation.. gambino was never the commander in chief.”

In a 2018 exchange, Epstein and Trump advisor Steve Bannon discussed the president’s threats to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he had named to the post just the year prior.

“should have been done months ago too old!!!!” Epstein wrote.

“Can u get rid of Powell or really get rid of mnuchin,” Bannon replied, referring to then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

“no, mnuchin is ok,” Epstein replied.

Trump on Friday named Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell after spending the past year assailing him for not cutting interest rates quickly enough.

Others center around Ghislaine Maxwell’s incarceration and her grievances related to her imprisonment conditions.

The records contain emails between investigators that discuss Epstein’s death, including his last note — with the email stating that it does not appear to be a suicide note.

Thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein’s jail suicide have already been released.

The House Oversight Committee has also issued a separate subpoena to Attorney General Pam Bondi for the files without redactions, but that has not been fulfilled. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the oversight panel, called the limited release of documents “outrageous and incredibly concerning.”

Congressional Democrats who have been key to pushing for the release of case files on Epstein are arguing that Friday’s release by the Department of Justice is only about half of the files that have been collected.

“The DOJ said it identified over 6 million potentially responsive pages but is releasing only about 3.5 million after review and redactions. This raises questions as to why the rest are being withheld,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who sponsored the bill that mandated the disclosure.

Khanna said he was looking to see whether the files released Friday included FBI interviews with victims, a draft indictment and information prosecutors collected during a 2007 investigation into Epstein in Florida.

The House Oversight Committee has also issued a separate subpoena to Attorney General Pam Bondi for the files without redactions, but that has not been fulfilled.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the oversight panel, called the limited release of documents “outrageous and incredibly concerning.”

Over the years, prosecutors received tips from people with wild stories about being sexually abused by famous figures. In some instances, FBI investigators diligently reached out to these tipsters and alleged victims and listened to their implausible sounding stories — some involving the occult and human sacrifice — then wrote dry reports summarizing what the people had to say and sent them to their superiors.

Attorney Jay Clayton told New York federal court judges overseeing records in the sex trafficking cases against Epstein and Maxwell that some documents are being withheld temporarily while the government awaits further guidance from civil and criminal courts.

In a letter to the judges, Clayton says his office continues to engage with victims and their lawyers, including during a call Thursday. He said the Justice Department has invited victims to reach out if they believe anything has been published that should be redacted.

The huge cache of documents included email correspondence between prosecutors, printouts of thousands of emails that Epstein either sent or received, news clippings, and reports written by FBI agents summarizing their interviews with witnesses and alleged victims in the investigation.

As was the case with many previous releases of documents related to Epstein, much material was blacked out. Some of the reports on FBI interviews had entire pages blacked out, along with the name of the person who was being interviewed.

The deputy U.S. attorney general also responded to criticism about the Justice Department’s handling of the files’ release.

He said federal attorneys had to review all 6 million pages to ensure no victim information is released, and couldn’t do so within the 30-day timeline set by the law. He noted various exemptions under the law, but said no material was being withheld under a national security or foreign policy exemption.

“There’s not some tranche of super-secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we’re withholding,” he said about redactions in the files.

Justice Department lawyers made extensive redactions to the released files, including victim information that included their medical files.

They redacted images and videos, including removing any woman depicted in videos except for Ghislaine Maxwell.

Lawyers also withheld child sex abuse materials or anything depicting images of death, physical abuse or injury, as well as anything that would hurt an ongoing federal investigation, Blanche said.

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Blanche said that the release may not answer all the questions people have about Epstein or the handling of the allegations against him.

“There’s a hunger, or a thirst, for information that I don’t think will be satisfied by review of these documents,” he said.

“We did not protect President Trump. We didn’t protect — or not protect — anybody,” Blanche said.

Blanche called the review and release of Epstein files an “unprecedented effort” as he defended the Trump administration’s response to demands for their release.

“I take umbrage at the suggestion, which is totally false, that the attorney general or this department does not take child exploitation or sex trafficking seriously,” Blanche said. “We do.”

He said more than 6 million pages could potentially be released under the law, but that the department’s massive release does not include files that contain personally identifiable information of victims.

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department, in releasing more than 3 million pages of Epstein files Friday, that federal lawyers gave up countless hours every single day to fulfill this “promise of transparency” to the American people.