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The Department of Justice on Friday released a long-awaited and huge tranche of documents detailing its investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, a major development in the lengthy saga that turned into one of the biggest political setbacks Donald Trump has suffered since his re-election last year.<\/p>\n While significant portions of the files are redacted, those that were viewable included images of Epstein socializing with an array of prominent figures, including entertainers like Michael Jackson, Chris Tucker and Diana Ross, and the entrepreneur Richard Branson. Bill Clinton appears in several photos, including one in which he is in a swimming pool along with Epstein\u2019s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The images also show former British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.<\/p>\n In a letter to Congress, Todd Blanche said that the documents, which date back to 2006, when Epstein was investigated on child prostitution charges, were only the first set of what is planned for release. \u201cThe volume of materials to be reviewed \u2026 means that the department must publicly produce responsive documents on a rolling basis,\u201d the deputy attorney general wrote in the letter obtained by Fox News.<\/p>\n He also acknowledged an array of redactions, including the identifying details of more than 1,200 victims and their family members.<\/p>\n Congressional Democrats accused the Trump administration of failing to adhere to the letter of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the justice department<\/a> to release all \u201cunclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials\u201d in its possession related to the financier\u2019s cases by 19 December. Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors.<\/p>\n The law also requires the justice department to publish any materials from the investigations that relate toMaxwell<\/a>, who was found guilty in 2021 <\/a>of aidingEpstein<\/a>\u2019s sex trafficking of teen girls and sentenced to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnically they\u2019re not in compliance,\u201d said Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, a leader of the push to get the legislation passed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe law calls for all the documents that are unclassified to be released. They have not done that. The law also calls for them to explain redactions. I haven\u2019t seen yet whether they\u2019ve done that or not. My initial read is that they have a lot of redactions without explanation,\u201d Khanna said.<\/p>\n Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, echoed his concerns, and said in a statement: \u201cWe will pursue every option to make sure the truth comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n Abigail Jackson, the White House deputy press secretary, said the documents\u2019 release prove that \u201cthe Trump administration is the most transparent in history\u201d and said it \u201chas done more for the victims than Democrats ever have\u201d by making the files public and cooperating with a separate congressional investigation.Epstein\u2019s case has captivated public attention for years, and been the subject of countless conspiracy theories<\/a> \u2013 largely due to his connections to powerful and wealthy figures in the US and overseas, including Trump.<\/p>\n While he has the authority as president to make the documents public, Trump previously opposed doing so, and said the concern over his ties to Epstein was a \u201cDemocrat hoax\u201d. As the House of Representatives neared approval of the bill in November, the president abruptly reversed his position<\/a> and said Republican lawmakers should support it. It was later passed unanimously by the Senate, and Trump signed the measure into law on 19 November, triggering a 30-day countdown for the documents\u2019 release.<\/p>\n Although the law mandates the release of unclassified materials, it may not provide the full transparency demanded <\/a>by numerous Epstein victims, as it does include notable carve-outs, including a provision exempting materials \u201cthat would jeopardize an active federal investigation\u201d from being released.<\/p>\n The legislation also states that \u201cno later than 15 days\u201d after the materials are made public, the justice department must provide Congress with a list of all categories of records released and withheld, a summary of any redactions made, and a list of \u201call government officials and politically exposed individuals named or referenced in the published materials\u201d.<\/p>\n Before the release of the materials, experts also warned<\/a> that the disclosure of records may not provide a full accounting of Epstein\u2019s crimes or his network, and that it could still leave many Epstein questions unanswered.<\/p>\n Trump vowed to release Epstein-related files as he campaigned for president last year. This summer, his administration sparked backlash after the justice department announced it would not<\/a> release any files related to the late financier, and said it had found<\/a> \u201cno incriminating client list\u201d despite earlier claims <\/a>from Pam Bondi, the attorney general, that such a document was sitting on her desk.<\/p>\n The announcement sparked bipartisan <\/a>outrage \u2013 including from some<\/a> Trump supporters \u2013\u00a0and reignited scrutiny <\/a>of Epstein\u2019s past ties<\/a> to Trump, with whom he was friendly for at least 15 years<\/a> before falling out in 2004<\/a>. The president has consistently denied any knowledge of or involvement in Epstein\u2019s criminal activities.<\/p>\n In mid-November, several days before Congress voted to release the DoJ files, Democrats on the House oversight committee released three email exchanges<\/a> they received from Epstein\u2019s estate in response to a subpoena that dated from 2011, 2015 and 2019, and included one email in which Epstein claimed<\/a> that Trump \u201cknew about the girls\u201d.<\/p>\n Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed the emails, and accused<\/a> Democrats of \u201cselectively\u201d leaking them \u201cto create a fake narrative to smear President Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n Later that day, Republicans on the committee released over 20,000<\/a> documents<\/a> they received from Epstein\u2019s estate, including emails <\/a>between Epstein and prominent figures.<\/p>\n In early December, House Democrats on the committee released several dozen <\/a>photographs from Epstein\u2019s estate that highlight his ties to prominent figures, including Trump, Clinton and Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a>.<\/p>\n The images represent a small number of the almost 100,000 images given to the House committee, and were released without context or captions.<\/p>\n This week, House Democrats on the committee released another batch<\/a> of photos from Epstein\u2019s estate, as the deadline for the DoJ to release its files loomed.<\/p>\n Among the images were photographs of lines from Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s novel Lolita \u2013 which is about a middle-aged man\u2019s sexual obsession with and sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl \u2013 written on different parts of a woman\u2019s body. It was reported earlier<\/a> this year that photos from inside Epstein\u2019s Manhattan mansion revealed that he kept a first edition copy of Lolita in his office.<\/p>\n The same batch also included photos of travel documents, and notable people like Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Noam Chomsky, and Steve Bannon, Trump\u2019s former adviser.<\/p>\n The images provided by the estate were undated, and provided without context. The appearance of these people in the photos is not evidence of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #justice #department #releases #heavily #redacted #cache #Jeffrey #Epstein #files #Jeffrey #Epstein<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Justice on F… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}