USA (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The Trump administration says about 700,000 Jeffrey Epstein case files still require review, delaying public release by at least another week.
A 200-person team has reviewed and published almost 750,000 documents in the late convicted sex offender’s case thus far, a Trump administration insider told Axios, which cites a “palpable sense of exasperation” with the situation behind closed doors.
It comes after the Justice Department’s largest-ever document release on Tuesday, which included hundreds of emails and other correspondence from law enforcement and prosecutors looking into Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein following his 2019 prison death that was determined to be a suicide.
The materials made public on Tuesday made numerous references to President Donald Trump, who had a long-term association with Epstein until the early 2000s.
A person’s existence in the files does not imply criminality, and Trump is not charged with any wrongdoing related to his crimes. He was quickly defended by the Justice Department, which said that the papers contained “untrue and sensationalist claims” that were allegedly meant to sway the 2020 presidential election.
The administration is still plagued by the controversy, which is made worse by the extensively redacted papers and its “clumsy” and incomplete document release.
Despite a federal legislation signed by Trump that required the government to publicly disclose whatever it had by December 19, there was immediate criticism when the Justice Department failed to release all of the long-awaited materials in its possession.
“There’s a palpable sense of exasperation and annoyance in the administration about all of the headlines pertaining to Trump and Epstein and the inability to explain everything and just get the disclosure done,”
Axios noted.
Officials are growing “frustrated” with the saga as it shows few signs of abating.
“It’s a combination of extreme frustration at everything: at what Congress did, at our response to it, and a concern that it won’t go away,”
an official told the outlet.
“This will end soon,”
another official told Axios.
“The conspiracy theories won’t.”
The outlet claims that many of the 700,000 documents that need to be vetted are duplicates, so not all of them will be made public. However, thousands more are expected to arrive within the next week.
The public’s knowledge of the extent of Epstein’s crimes and his ties to an alleged sex trafficking ring that is accused of abusing and exploiting young girls has not improved despite the Justice Department’s release of about 30,000 files on Tuesday. The materials are heavily redacted and are primarily shared without any context.
The most recent batch had numerous references to Trump, leading the agency to declare in a statement that some of the material is “fake.”
“There has been lots of sensationalism and even outright lies these past few days about the ‘Epstein Files,’”
deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Monday night in a statement on X.
“But let’s separate fact from fiction. Document production is just that. We produce documents, and sometimes this can result in releasing fake or false documents because they simply are in our possession because the law requires this.”
Among the records made public by the Justice Department, Blanche cited a letter written by “J Epstein” from “Manhattan Correctional” to Larry Nassar, the former doctor for the women’s gymnastics team who was found guilty of abusing and sexually abusing hundreds of young athletes.
Three days after Epstein’s passing, on August 13, 2019, the letter was postmarked. More than a month after it was marked “return to sender,” it was found in a mailroom.
The Justice Department claims that the writing does not seem to be Epstein’s and was stamped from Virginia rather than New York, where Epstein was incarcerated.
“The so-called Epstein Nassar letter is clearly FAKE,”
Blanche continued in the statement.
“Wrong handwriting, wrong return address, and postmarked three days after Epstein died. These are not reality. We will continue to produce every document required by law. Let’s not let internet rumor engines outrun the facts.”
A federal prosecutor in Manhattan sent a message in January 2020 claiming that flight records revealed Trump “traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware),” among other details uncovered on Tuesday. It covered the time when the prosecution was getting ready to file charges against Maxwell.
In the past, Trump said he was “never on Epstein’s Plane.”
The letter states that Trump traveled on at least eight aircraft between 1993 and 1996. According to a redacted assistant U.S. attorney, Maxwell was also on at least four of those planes.
The records also contain a number of tips that the FBI gathered regarding Trump’s early 2000s involvement with Epstein and parties at their properties. The messages don’t say whether the accusations were verified or whether any more investigations were conducted.
An image of Trump with Maxwell was found on Steve Bannon’s phone, according to a June 2021 message from an investigator.
According to the recently published records, investigators also found at least ten co-conspirators in Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case, none of whom have been made public. FBI Director Kash Patel said earlier this year that there was “no credible information” suggesting Epstein trafficked women and girls to anyone other than himself, notwithstanding this conclusion.
A federal grand jury subpoenaed three of those suspected co-conspirators, who resided in Florida. According to communications dated July 2019, there were others in Connecticut, New York City, and Boston. One message describes him as a “wealthy business man in Ohio.”
The documents show that following Epstein’s death in 2019, prosecutors drafted multiple memos deciding whether to charge alleged accomplices in his case.
However, the Justice Department’s archives merely make reference to the memos, not the actual documents.
The president stated that Epstein was “all over Palm Beach” and that many people came into contact with him during his first public comments regarding the documents on Monday night while speaking from Mar-a-Lago.
“You probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago,”
Trump said.
“A lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein, but they’re in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin the reputation of somebody.”
How will the review affect subpoenas linked to Mar a Lago?
The ongoing DOJ review of roughly 700,000 remaining Jeffrey Epstein lines will probably delay processing and implicit unsealing of any Mar-a-Lago-linked processes mentioned in previous releases, as victim sequestration redactions take priority over expedited exposure timelines.
A 2021 process from Ghislaine Maxwell’s case targeted Mar-a-Lago records, appearing in earlier train batches without revealing new Trump wrongdoing; full review could uncover affiliated dispatches or substantiation, but current detainments stem from public security and survivor protections, not specific inhibition.
Congressional pressure for disdain proceedings against AG Pam Bondi mounts, yet the administration prioritizes thorough vetting, potentially pushing process details into January 2026 amid political scrutiny over picky releases.
