Daily London
The release included photographs, call logs, grand jury testimony and some documents and records that have already been in the public domain.
Photos of Bill Clinton
Several photos of former President Bill Clinton are in the documents released by the Justice Department
Some show Clinton on a private plane, including one with a woman whose face was redacted from the photo sitting on his lap. Another photo shows him in a pool with Maxwell and a person whose face also was redacted.
Another photo shows Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.
The files do not say when the photos were taken.
Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name or images in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.
Clinton minimised his relationship with Epstein, acknowledging that he traveled on Epstein’s private jet but saying through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes.
Files appear online after a waiting room-like queue
High interest led the Justice Department to regulate access to its Epstein files website for a time.
The webpage went live Friday afternoon with a waiting room-type queue akin to what concertgoers sometimes see when they go online to purchase tickets.
Visitors were greeted with the message: “You are in line for Department of Justice web content. When it is your turn, you will have 10 minutes to enter the website.”
The webpage then refreshed to reveal a landing page with various categories of documents, including court records and other disclosures.
The records could contain the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government investigations into Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls.
Their release has long been demanded by a public hungry to learn whether any of Epstein’s rich and powerful associates knew about — or participated in — the abuse. Epstein’s accusers have also long sought answers about why federal authorities shut down their initial investigation into the allegations in 2008.
Bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump on November 19 signed a bill giving the Justice Department 30 days to release most of its files and communications related to Epstein, including information about the investigation into his death in a federal jail. The law’s passage was a remarkable display of bipartisanship that overcame months of opposition from Trump and Republican leadership.
That law allows for redactions about the victims or ongoing investigations but makes clear no records shall be withheld or redacted due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said on November 14 that she had ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to Trump’s political foes, including former President Bill Clinton. Bondi acted after Trump pressed for such an inquiry, though he did not explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men Trump mentioned in a social media post demanding the investigation has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
In July, Trump dismissed some of his own supporters as “weaklings” for falling for “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax.” But both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., failed to prevent the legislation from coming to a vote.
Trump did a U-turn on the files once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted that the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the Republican agenda and that releasing the records was the best way to move on.
The Epstein investigations
Police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at his mansion. The FBI joined the investigation, and authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they had been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.
Ultimately, though, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Epstein’s accusers then spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside. One of those women, Virginia Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with numerous other men, including billionaires, famous academics, US politicians and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Britain’s Prince Andrew.
All of those men denied the allegations. Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Giuffre’s claims, but her account fuelled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia in April at age 41.
Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail a month after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse.
Maxwell was convicted in late 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she was interviewed over the summer by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Her lawyers argued that she never should have been tried or convicted.
The Justice Department in July said it had not found any information that could support prosecuting anyone else.
Lots of Epstein records were already public
After nearly two decades of court action and prying by reporters, a voluminous number of records related to Epstein is already public, including flight logs, address books, email correspondence, police reports, grand jury records, courtroom testimony and transcripts of depositions of his accusers, his staffers and others.
Yet, the public’s appetite for more records has been insatiable, particularly for anything related to Epstein’s associations with famous people including Trump, Mountbatten-Windsor and Clinton.
Trump was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling out. Neither he nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.
Mountbatten-Windsor denied ever having sex with Giuffre, but King Charles III stripped him of his royal titles this year after Giuffre’s memoir was published after she died.
