The Justice Department released thousands of files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, which includes documents, recordings of phone calls and videos gathered during state and federal investigations.
Why it matters: The trove includes hundreds of thousands of pages that give the most explicit look yet into Epstein's years of abuse and his connections throughout the worlds of business and politics.
The full trove of documents is accessible here.
What's inside: The drop includes transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell's July interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, surveillance video clips from the prison where Epstein killed himself in 2019 while incarcerated, and flight logs from the Virgin Islands to Palm Beach.
- A handwritten note also instructs someone to get a "bucket of roses" and bring it to an unnamed woman at a "high school," mixed in with another errand.
- The release also includes scanned pages from the how-to book "Massage for Dummies" and messages instructing someone to make calls to political appointees.
The records also detail the kinds of abuse Epstein made his survivors endure.
- In a graphic Palm Beach police interview, a girl says she was recruited to give Epstein partially nude massages when she was 16.
- She describes how Epstein asked her to seek emancipation from her parents to live with him as a "sex slave, whatever you want to call it."
New photos from Epstein's estate are in the release too, many featuring women in various levels of undress.
- The archive also includes images of Epstein posing with the check Trump allegedly gave him suggesting the sex offender "sold" him a woman, framed with the caption "once in a blue moon" written repeatedly around the perimeter.
- One image shows Epstein standing over four identically dressed women with their hands together in a prayer position.
- Another features Former President Clinton in a pool next to someone whose face is censored.
What they're saying: "The Trump administration is providing levels of transparency that prior administrations never even contemplated," the DOJ said on X Friday.
Yes, but: Some pages of the files are almost entirely redacted.
- Some of the omissions are to protect Epstein's survivors, such as a fully blacked out document labelled "Masseuse List."
- The administration was also allowed to redact the files to protect ongoing investigations, such as the probe into former President Bill Clinton's and former Harvard president Larry Summers' connections to Epstein.
- There's also a carve out for "national security" concerns, which gives the department wide latitude on what was published.
Context: The release was required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed Congress near-unanimously. Trump ultimately signed it into law after he failed to convince Republicans to abandon the effort.
What we're watching: Blanche said earlier Friday that thousands more documents could be released in coming weeks.
Go deeper: Jeffrey Epstein pictured with Trump, Clinton in new photos released by Dems
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
