The Justice Department on Friday released thousands of documents from its files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the massive release of documents was heavily redacted and incomplete. and shed little new light on his crimes.
It did, however, feature celebrity cameos.
Here's a look at what's—and isn't—in the Epstein Files so far.
Many files have already been published.
Much of the published material was made public through various lawsuits and lawsuits, including police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, that led to the state's initial criminal investigation in 2005. Some records were also released as part of the House Oversight Committee's investigation into Epstein.
The documents released already included public records of the criminal cases against Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, including Maxwell's appeal of her conviction and 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges. This also includes various civil lawsuits filed against Epstein over the years.
But it wasn't all old news. One of the files released was Maria Farmer's 1996 FBI complaint alleging Epstein stole photographs she took of his 12- and 16-year-old sisters and sold them. She sued the federal government this year in federal court over alleged failures to protect her and Epstein's other victims.
“I feel redeemed,” Farmer said in a statement Friday.
Her legal team said in a press release that the document “proves that if the FBI had simply done its job in 1996, Epstein's decades-long sex trafficking operation could have been stopped in its tracks.”
Farmer's lawsuit is still pending, and the government has yet to respond to her allegations.
Many records are still missing
The Epstein File Transparency Act gave the attorney general 30 days to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the Department of Justice's possession” involving Epstein, “including all investigations, prosecutions, or custody matters.”
Those hours expired Friday, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged that the release was missing “all” pages by several hundred thousand and that it could take “a couple of weeks“for the rest to come to light.
He explained the delay by the need to edit information about the victims. “We go through every piece of paper that we're going to prepare to make sure that every victim – their name, their identity, their story – to the extent that they need protection is fully protected,” he said. Fox News.
The law's co-sponsor, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said the department needs to provide a detailed timetable for when the documents will be released, and also noted that some of the documents appeared to be overly redacted.
“Some of the documents I just reviewed contain very serious edits,” Khanna said, and by law “they are required to give Congress and the American public an explanation for each edit.”
Hannah's co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said in a statement: video on X On Thursday, victims' attorneys told him that “the FBI has at least 20 names of men accused of sex crimes,” but the press release did not include any such names.
Several mentions of Trump in DOJ press release
President Donald Trump's past friendship with Epstein is well known, and his chief of staff Susie Wiles has spoken out about it. Vanity Fair, which he appears in the files, but there were only a few passing references to him in the documents released Friday.
Trump has said he had a falling out with Epstein before he faced criminal charges and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Wiles told Vanity Fair that Trump is on the books, but he's “not doing anything terrible.” She said he and Epstein were “young, single playboys.”
In a statement following the Justice Department's release, the White House said: “The Trump Administration is the most transparent in history. By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with a House Oversight Committee subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein's Democratic cronies, the Trump Administration has done more for victims than Democrats have ever done.”
Bill Clinton appears repeatedly
However, former President Bill Clinton appeared repeatedly in photographs released with the files. In one of them he stands with Epstein, they smile, looking at something that is not in the photo. In another, he is in a hot tub. In the third, he is photographed swimming in a pool with Maxwell.
In two others, Clinton is shown hugging a woman whose face is obscured, and in the third he is shown sitting at a table with a woman sitting on his leg.
The photographs are undated and it is unclear where they were taken. Clinton flew on Epstein's plane four times in 2002 and 2003 on trips for his Clinton Foundation. according to his representative, Angel Urena.
Trump has called Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Clinton's ties to Epstein, although the former president was not accused of any wrongdoing. Nothing in the photographs indicates any irregularities.
in a report on X that “The White House kept these files hidden for months only to dump them late Friday to protect Bill Clinton. It's about protecting themselves from what comes next, or what they try to hide forever. So they can post as many grainy 20-year-old photos as they want, but it's not about Bill Clinton. This has never happened and will never happen.”
Wiles told Vanity Fair that “the president was mistaken” in suggesting that there was something incriminating about Clinton in Epstein's notes.
More celebrity encounters
Clinton was not the only famous person whose image appeared in the files. In another photo, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger appeared with the former president, with a woman with her face darkened standing between them.
A representative for Jagger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In another, Epstein was photographed standing next to late pop star Michael Jackson in front of a painting of a nude woman reading on a beach.
Others showed actor Kevin Spacey standing next to Epstein. None of the photographs are dated, so it is unclear when or where they were taken. Spacey told journalist Piers Morgan He flew on Epstein's plane last year as part of a Clinton Foundation humanitarian mission but “never spent time with him.”
A representative for Spacey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. IN publish on X earlier this year, Spacey wrote: “Publish the Epstein files. All. For those of us who have nothing to fear, the truth cannot come soon enough.”
Nothing in the photographs suggests any wrongdoing on the part of any other figure. In a letter to Congress on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the records “do not provide credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals, nor do they reveal evidence that could warrant investigations against unindicted third parties.”
