Justice Department releases trove of Epstein files

COURTESY PHOTO via REUTERS

Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ sex offender registry on March 28, 2017.

The Justice Department released thousands of documents and hundreds of photographs related to investigations of Jeffrey Epstein today, responding to a deadline set by Congress and reviving a scandal that has dogged the second Trump administration.

The significance of the disclosure was unknown, given the volume of the records and how much Epstein material has been previously disclosed.

And because the Justice Department said that it had withheld some documents, citing ongoing investigations or national security concerns, the release is as likely to reignite the furor over the so-called Epstein files as quell it.

An initial review of the files showed numerous photographs of people known to have associated with Epstein, including his longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell, former President Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (then known as Prince Andrew of Britain) and his former wife Sarah Ferguson, and pop stars like Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger. The context of the photographs, the locations where they were taken and their connection to Epstein was frequently unclear.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a Fox News interview this morning that the Justice Department would release “several hundred thousand documents” from its investigative files on Epstein. But he also said the department would hold back an unknown amount of material while its lawyers continue to comb through it.

In a letter to members of Congress, Blanche said that the Justice Department had identified 1,200 names of victims of Epstein or their relatives, and that its lawyers had redacted or withheld any materials that could reveal their identities.

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In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Blanche wrote that “the volume of materials to be reviewed” would lead to the release of more documents, and that the Justice Department “will inform Congress when that review and production are complete by the end of this year.”

Today’s release was mandated by an act of Congress in November.

Although Republican leaders worked for months to stop the legislation, it passed nearly unanimously in the House and Senate and was then signed by President Donald Trump, who ultimately urged its passage after losing a political battle to prevent it.

The White House, fixated on the perils of a never-ending political crisis stoked by its own encouragement of Epstein conspiracy theories, had sought for months to block efforts to release any new information about Epstein, who had a yearslong friendship with Trump.

Little worked. An overhyped document dump in February produced little new material. An unsigned statement from the Justice Department and FBI in July announced that the government had ended its review of the files and would not release more, only for the agencies to reverse themselves after public outcry and condemnation. And the release of more than 20,000 emails related to Epstein and subsequent releases of images only served to renew interest in the case, and the clamor for yet more transparency.

Here’s what else to know:

>> Document review: A preliminary review by New York Times reporters suggests that much of the Epstein materials derive from three investigations into his interactions with young women and girls: an initial inquiry opened by the police in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005; a subsequent investigation conducted by federal prosecutors in Florida that ended in 2008 with a plea deal for Epstein; and a final inquiry by prosecutors in New York in 2019 that was never resolved because he died in prison while the case was proceeding.

>> Epstein’s emails: White House officials have acknowledged that Trump appears in the Epstein files, and his name appeared in a trove of emails released in November. In those messages, Epstein cast himself as a Trump insider, suggested the president knew about his conduct with underage girls, and discussed leveraging potentially damaging information about Trump to “take him down.”

>> Epstein’s fortune: Times reporters spent months reporting the fullest portrait to date of how Epstein used connections and leverage to amass his fortune, revealing how, again and again, he proved willing to operate on the edge of criminality and burn bridges in his pursuit of wealth and power.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company

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