The Justice Department’s long-awaited release of records related to Jeffrey Epstein came in a flurry of documents that did little to quell the long-running intrigue, largely because some of the most important records were nowhere to be found.
The initial disclosures, which run into tens of thousands of pages, offer little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal prosecution for years.
Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed to plead guilty in 2008 to a relatively minor state prostitution charge.
The loopholes go on.
The records, which must be released under a recent law passed by Congress, do not contain references to several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures really promote public accountability.
The revelations so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York and the US Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians (US Department of Justice via AP)
Among the new news: an insight into the Justice Department’s decision to drop an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s that allowed him to plead guilty to that state charge, and a previously unseen complaint from 1996 that accused Epstein of stealing photos of children.
The revelations so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the US Virgin Islands, with a few shots of celebrities and politicians.
There have been a number of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton, but few glimpses of President Donald Trump. Both were associated with Epstein, but both have since disavowed those friendships. Neither has been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there has been no indication that the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.
Despite a deadline set by Congress on Friday to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release the records on an ongoing basis. He blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of withholding survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not announced when more records might arrive.
That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the law, forcing the department to act. Rather than marking the end of a years-long battle for transparency, the document released Friday was just the beginning of an indefinite wait for a full picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.
“I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who claims Epstein began sexually abusing her at his New York mansion when she was 14.
Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex-trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he committed suicide in prison after his arrest.
The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages of records held by the department. In one example, Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche said federal prosecutors in Manhattan hold more than 3.6 million files from sex-trafficking investigations into Epstein and his longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, although many duplicate materials have already been turned over to the FBI.
Many of the records released so far had been made public in court records, congressional releases or Freedom of Information requests, though for the first time they were all in one place and available for free public search.
The ones that were new often lacked the necessary context or were very dark. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” presumably from one of the federal sex-trafficking investigations that led to charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was obtained in its entirety.
Trump’s Republican allies seized images of Clinton, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV news anchor Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions, and no explanation was given as to why any of them were together.
The richest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007 but never charged him.
Transcripts of the grand jury proceedings, made public for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 years old and in the ninth grade.
One had told investigators she was sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.
Another, then 21, testified before a grand jury about how Epstein hired her when she was 16 to perform sexual massages and recruited other girls to do the same.
“For every girl I brought to the table, he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them if they’re underage, lie and tell them you’re 18.”
The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers conducted more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.
Acosta, who served as Labor secretary during Trump’s first term, expressed concern that a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.
He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal line between sex trafficking and prostitution solicitation, something more often handled by state prosecutors.
“I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that audiences today will likely see the survivors differently.
“There’s been a lot of change in victim shaming,” Acosta said.