Justice division says Epstein information embrace ‘unfaithful and sensationalist claims towards President Trump’
In a June 2024 interview with three hosts from the Fox morning present Fox & Pals – together with Pete Hegseth, who’s now the US protection secretary and Rachel Campos-Duffy, whose husband is now transportation secretary – Donald Trump was requested if he would decide to “declassify the Epstein information” from the federal investigations into the late intercourse offender he socialized with for greater than a decade.
“Yeah, yeah, I’d,” Trump answered.
However the model of the interview first broadcast on the present not noted what Trump added instantly after that: “I suppose I’d. I feel that much less so since you don’t know – you don’t need to have an effect on folks’s lives if it’s phoney stuff in there, trigger there’s lots of phony stuff with that complete … world.”
On Friday, as Trump’s justice division moved to conform, no less than partially, with the legislation by releasing hundreds of thousands of information from the federal investigations into Epstein, it has launched no less than some unverified allegations towards him from these information.
One of many paperwork getting essentially the most consideration on-line is an e mail from 2020 that features uncorroborated recommendations on Trump’s personal alleged involvement with Epstein’s victims that have been made to the FBI’s Nationwide Menace Operations Heart.
The doc, which was briefly inaccessible after it was posted, has been described as “incriminating Trump” by some critics, however the justice division supplied a press release to the Guardian calling these uncorroborated ideas “faux”.
Right here is the justice division assertion to the Guardian:
This manufacturing could embrace faux or falsely submitted pictures, paperwork or movies, as every little thing that was despatched to the FBI by the general public was included within the manufacturing that’s aware of the Act. A few of the paperwork comprise unfaithful and sensationalist claims towards President Trump that have been submitted to the FBI proper earlier than the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they’ve a shred of credibility, they definitely would have been weaponized towards President Trump already.
It’s unimaginable to confirm, from the partially redacted doc, if one component of the justice division assertion is true. The doc is a collection of emails with what seem like screenshots from one other doc, rounding up what somebody within the FBI refers to as “Trump accusers”. These emails have been despatched in August 2020, three months earlier than that 12 months’s election that Trump went on to lose. However the names of the accusers, and any details about when the ideas have been known as in to the FBI, will not be included in what was made public, so now we have no method of realizing when the accusations have been made.
Earlier reporting has proven that no less than one Epstein sufferer reported the sexual abuse of her 16-year-old sister by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the FBI in 1996.
Key occasions
Nick Robins-Early
Elon Musk had extra in depth – and extra pleasant – communications with the financier and intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein than beforehand publicly recognized, in keeping with paperwork launched on Friday by the Division of Justice. Emails within the information seem to point out the 2 cordially messaging one another on two separate events to make plans for Musk to go to Epstein’s island.
The paperwork embrace Musk and Epstein emailing in each 2012 and 2013 to find out when Musk ought to make the journey to Little St James. Neither exchanges seem to have resulted in Musk visiting the island, resulting from logistical points.
“Will probably be within the BVI/St Bart’s space over the vacations. Is there time to go to?” Musk states on 13 December 2013.
“any day 1st – eighth . play it by ear if you need. at all times house for you,” Epstein replies.
Musk then sends a number of emails relaying his schedule, and the 2 decide on 2 January as a date for the go to. The e-mail change ends with Epstein telling Musk that he would wish to stay in New York and sending his regrets that they might not meet.
“Dangerous news- Sadly , my schedule will maintain me in New York . I used to be actually wanting ahead to lastly spending a while along with simply enjoyable because the agenda. so i’m very disenchanted. Hopefully we are able to schedule one other time within the close to future,” Epstein wrote.
In November 2012, Epstein despatched Musk an e mail asking “how many individuals will you be for the heli to island”.
“Most likely simply Talulah and me. What day/evening would be the wildest social gathering in your island?” Musk replied. On 2 January 2013, Musk despatched Epstein an e mail suggesting that the go to wouldn’t happen saying: “Logistics received’t work this time round.”
Musk has been harshly essential of these linked to Epstein, however the newly launched emails seem to contradict his personal longstanding denial of any ties of his personal. The Tesla CEO told Vainness Honest in 2019 that Epstein was “clearly a creep” and claimed that Epstein “tried repeatedly to get me to go to his island. I declined.” The emails between the 2 moguls come years after Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida. Authorities later arrested Epstein in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking prices.
Justice division says Epstein information embrace ‘unfaithful and sensationalist claims towards President Trump’
In a June 2024 interview with three hosts from the Fox morning present Fox & Pals – together with Pete Hegseth, who’s now the US protection secretary and Rachel Campos-Duffy, whose husband is now transportation secretary – Donald Trump was requested if he would decide to “declassify the Epstein information” from the federal investigations into the late intercourse offender he socialized with for greater than a decade.
“Yeah, yeah, I’d,” Trump answered.
However the model of the interview first broadcast on the present not noted what Trump added instantly after that: “I suppose I’d. I feel that much less so since you don’t know – you don’t need to have an effect on folks’s lives if it’s phoney stuff in there, trigger there’s lots of phony stuff with that complete … world.”
On Friday, as Trump’s justice division moved to conform, no less than partially, with the legislation by releasing hundreds of thousands of information from the federal investigations into Epstein, it has launched no less than some unverified allegations towards him from these information.
One of many paperwork getting essentially the most consideration on-line is an e mail from 2020 that features uncorroborated recommendations on Trump’s personal alleged involvement with Epstein’s victims that have been made to the FBI’s Nationwide Menace Operations Heart.
The doc, which was briefly inaccessible after it was posted, has been described as “incriminating Trump” by some critics, however the justice division supplied a press release to the Guardian calling these uncorroborated ideas “faux”.
Right here is the justice division assertion to the Guardian:
This manufacturing could embrace faux or falsely submitted pictures, paperwork or movies, as every little thing that was despatched to the FBI by the general public was included within the manufacturing that’s aware of the Act. A few of the paperwork comprise unfaithful and sensationalist claims towards President Trump that have been submitted to the FBI proper earlier than the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they’ve a shred of credibility, they definitely would have been weaponized towards President Trump already.
It’s unimaginable to confirm, from the partially redacted doc, if one component of the justice division assertion is true. The doc is a collection of emails with what seem like screenshots from one other doc, rounding up what somebody within the FBI refers to as “Trump accusers”. These emails have been despatched in August 2020, three months earlier than that 12 months’s election that Trump went on to lose. However the names of the accusers, and any details about when the ideas have been known as in to the FBI, will not be included in what was made public, so now we have no method of realizing when the accusations have been made.
Earlier reporting has proven that no less than one Epstein sufferer reported the sexual abuse of her 16-year-old sister by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the FBI in 1996.
Obama ethics lawyer says Trump’s justice division is illegally withholding information
Norm Eisen, a lawyer who served as particular assistant to Barack Obama for ethics and authorities reform from 2009-2010, has launched a press release on behalf of his non-partisan Democracy Defenders Fund on what he calls the Trump justice division’s “failure to completely launch all eligible information referring to the Epstein investigation, as required by the Epstein Information Transparency Act”, by way of its new, partial launch of paperwork.
Eisen says:
These paperwork have been due greater than a month in the past. Talking on the Justice Division right now, Todd Blanche introduced that the Division had doubtless made its remaining launch of paperwork. However whereas Blanche stated the Division reviewed roughly six million data, it solely plans to launch about three million. Worse, he conceded the Division has been redacting data past what the legislation permits.
“They’re making an attempt to promote this as full compliance and the ‘full’ Epstein document. However every little thing about their rollout indicators the identical previous playbook: heavy redactions, selective disclosure, and a public-facing archive that doesn’t reliably mirror what the federal government really has.
“Once more, the Division says: belief us. Once more, we won’t take up their insincere supply. Within the hours and days forward, we are going to scrutinize each web page. We now have litigation pending, and we’re ready to make use of each out there authorized treatment to compel full compliance and full manufacturing, whereas taking each step to guard the privateness and dignity of the victims.”
Right here’s extra from the Guardian’s Geraldine McKelvie on what the newly launched information reveal about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s interactions with Jeffrey Epstein throughout a go to to New York Metropolis in 2010 – after the financier’s conviction on youngster sexual abuse prices in Florida:
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor attended an intimate social gathering with the convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein months after he was launched from jail, information recommend.
The US justice division launched one other cache of paperwork referring to the disgraced financier on Friday.
They embrace emails from the Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal to a number of high-profile figures in relation to a “last-minute informal dinner” for Mountbatten-Windsor, who was in New York on an “unofficial personal go to” in December 2010.
The gathering seems to have taken place at Epstein’s New York dwelling, the place Mountbatten-Windsor was staying.
Mountbatten-Windsor beforehand stated the aim of his journey was to sever ties with Epstein, who was jailed for youngster sexual abuse offences in July 2009. Through the go to, Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein have been pictured strolling collectively in Central Park.
The previous prince stated in his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019 that he selected to fulfill Epstein in individual to finish the friendship as he felt breaking the information “over the phone was the hen’s method of doing it”.
Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019 as he confronted recent youngster sexual abuse prices. Mountbatten-Windsor has withdrawn from royal life and been stripped of his titles over his hyperlinks to Epstein.
In 2022, he paid a reported £12m settlement to Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre, who killed herself final April, claimed she was pressured to have intercourse with Mountbatten-Windsor after being trafficked to him by Epstein. He has at all times strenuously denied these allegations and made the cost with out admitting legal responsibility.
Paperwork present Epstein transferred cash to husband of former UK ambassador to Washington
The newly launched justice division paperwork reveal extra about Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Peter Mandelson, who was London’s ambassador to the US till his sacking final 12 months, after the extent of his ties to the disgraced financier turned public.
Right here’s extra, from the Guardian’s Emine Sinmaz:
Jeffrey Epstein despatched 1000’s of kilos in financial institution transfers after his launch from jail in 2009 to Peter Mandelson’s husband, in keeping with emails published by the US Department of Justice on Friday.
The newest paperwork increase recent questions on Epstein’s relationship with Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington when particulars of his help for the disgraced financier emerged in September.
The newest information set printed on Friday exhibits that Mandelson’s husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, emailed Epstein on 7 September 2009, about two months after Epstein was launched from jail. Epstein had served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a intercourse offender. Mandelson was enterprise secretary on the time and in a relationship with da Silva. The pair married in 2023 after 27 years collectively.
Da Silva requested Epstein to fund an osteopathy course and different bills, saying: “I despatched you a few emails final week relating to my osteo course bills, incl payment, anatomical fashions, laptop computer in case you may also help me with this. I hope you acquired them.
“I simply managed to talk to the charges workplace on the osteo college and confirmed that my annual payment is of £3,225 … They settle for financial institution switch and the small print are as follows.”
Epstein responded later that day and stated: “I’ll wire your mortgage quantity immediated’y [sic].”
Peter Mandelson stated on Friday: “I used to be unsuitable to consider Epstein following his conviction and to proceed my affiliation with him afterwards. I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the ladies and ladies who suffered.
“I used to be by no means culpable or complicit in his crimes. Like everybody else I realized the precise reality about him after his dying.
“However his victims did know what he was doing, their voices weren’t heard and I’m sorry I used to be amongst those that believed him over them.”
Images present inside Epstein’s cell following dying
A number of pictures launched right now by the justice division present Jeffrey Epstein’s cell in New York Metropolis’s Metropolitan correctional heart following his dying in 2019. The financier’s dying was dominated a suicide:
Additionally launched was a shot of its exterior, following his dying:
Emails present tentative visitor listing for 2010 dinner Epstein hosted with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
The newly launched information reveal the proposed visitor listing for a dinner Jeffrey Epstein convened in 2010 when the previous prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was staying at his home in New York Metropolis.
“George: don’t assume much less of me however I’m placing collectively a really final minute informal dinner for Prince Andrew, who’s in New York on an unofficial personal go to,” publicist Peggy Siegal wrote to George Stephanopoulos on 1 December 2010 in an e mail with the topic line “Thursday small dinner for Prince Andrew”. Stephanopoulos is a former White Home communications director to Invoice Clinton turned broadcast journalist.
Siegal continued:
The listing for much…and we arc holding this personal and small… Prince Andrew, Woody Allen and Quickly-Yi, Katie Couric….leffrey Epstein, the place Andrew is staying. Jeffrey’s home is one the most important single dwellings in New York…it’s lovely. So come to for a really fascinating, quick. enjoyable dinner
Stephanopoulos replied that he might make it, however must depart early, prompting Siegal to answer:
Completely superb. That’s why we’re beginning at 8:00pm. So come on time and you should have personal time with Andrew as a result of he’s staying on the home….
Stephanopoulos later bowed out, the emails present, saying his daughters have been sick.
Among the many new pictures launched within the newest batch of Epstein information is one displaying his cell following his 2019 dying, which investigators decided to be a suicide.
The picture exhibits strips of orange material over a railing and in a nook of a cell within the Metropolitan correctional heart in New York Metropolis, the place Epstein was detained whereas awaiting trial on sex-trafficking prices.
Additionally included within the launch is an 89-page report from New York Metropolis’s chief medical expert into his dying.
Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman who was a key power in getting the Epstein Information Transparency Act signed into legislation, was equally skeptical of deputy lawyer common Todd Blanche’s declare that the justice division had launched all of the information the act required them to.
“The DOJ stated it recognized over 6 million probably responsive pages however is releasing solely about 3.5 million after evaluate and redactions. This raises questions as to why the remaining are being withheld,” Khanna stated in a press release.
He continued:
I will probably be reviewing carefully to see in the event that they launch what I’ve been pushing for: the FBI 302 sufferer interview statements, a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum ready through the 2007 Florida investigation, and tons of of 1000’s of emails and information from Epstein’s computer systems. Failing to launch these information solely shields the highly effective people who have been concerned and hurts the general public’s belief in our establishments.
Prime Democrat says lawyer common ‘in violation of the legislation’ if extra Epstein information aren’t launched
Robert Garcia, the Democratic rating member on the Home oversight committee which has taken a lead position in investigating the federal government’s dealing with of Jeffrey Epstein’s prosecutions, accused lawyer common Pam Bondi of breaking the legislation after her deputy Todd Blanche indicated the division would launch no additional information associated to the disgraced financier.
“Donald Trump and his Division Justice have now made it clear that they intend to withhold roughly 50% of the Epstein information, whereas claiming to have absolutely complied with the legislation. That is outrageous and extremely regarding,” Garcia stated in a press release.
“The Oversight Committee subpoena directs Pam Bondi to launch all of the information to the committee, whereas defending survivors. They’re in violation of the legislation.”
The Republican-controlled oversight committee’s investigation has resulted within the launch of a number of paperwork which have make clear Epstein’s relationship with highly effective figures together with Donald Trump:
Additionally on this trove of information is Ghislaine Maxwell’s US naturalization certificates, which lists her dwelling tackle at Little St James Island, one in all Epstein’s two personal islands within the US Virgin Islands.
Epstein’s victims have gone by way of ‘unspeakable ache’, says Blanche
Requested on the press convention earlier about survivors which have “expressed frustration” on the DoJ’s course of for releasing the information, Blanche responded: “Identical right here.”
If there’s frustration with quote, your entire course of, identical right here.
“The victims of Epstein have gone by way of unspeakable ache,” he added. He stated that he hopes that the discharge of the information has been capable of “deliver closure” to the victims.
Right here’s a glance again, from the Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis, on the distinctive federal legislation that mandates launch of the Epstein information, and the way the justice division has been criticized for not releasing them shortly sufficient:
The legislation was clear: Donald Trump’s Division of Justice was required to reveal all investigative information on Jeffrey Epstein by 19 December 2025, with uncommon exceptions.
One month after this deadline mandated by Congress’s Epstein Information Transparency Act, nevertheless, Trump’s justice division has not complied with this legislation, prompting questions on when – and whether or not – authorities will ever launch investigative paperwork in regards to the late intercourse offender.
Justice division attorneys said in a 5 January Manhattan court docket submitting that that they had posted roughly 12,285 to DoJ’s web site, equating to some 125,575 pages, beneath this laws’s necessities. They stated on this identical letter that justice division employees had recognized “greater than 2 million paperwork probably aware of the Act which might be in numerous phases of evaluate”.
That these DoJ disclosures apparently comprise a drop within the bucket – and have finished little to make clear how Epstein operated with apparent impunity for years – has roiled survivors’ advocates and lawmakers. They embrace lawyer Spencer Kuvin, who has represented dozens of Epstein’s survivors.
“Congress didn’t create a discretionary timeline – it created a authorized obligation. Each day these data stay withheld sends a message to victims that transparency is non-obligatory when highly effective pursuits are concerned,” Kuvin stated. “For survivors of Epstein’s abuse, this delay will not be procedural – it’s private.
The justice division’s Epstein Library now contains an age verification, asking customers in the event that they’re over 18.
Blanche earlier informed reporters that among the content material being launched contains pornography, with redactions.
