Co-conspirators, private flights and fake letters: Unanswered questions after the biggest Esptein file release so far
The Department of Justice published another enormous batch of files relating to its past investigations into Jeffrey Epstein Tuesday, making a further 11,000 files available for download on its website.
The latest drop followed on from its publication of an incomplete set of documents and photographs pertaining to the late pedophile and sex trafficker Friday to comply with a 30-day deadline set in motion by the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act through Congress in November.
However, much of what was released proved to be heavily redacted and lacking in context and was not delivered in a searchable format, as the act had expressly stipulated.
The partial release drew an angry reaction from an Epstein survivors’ group, who branded it “unacceptable,” and from the lawmakers behind the original push to release the files, who said they are now weighing contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the matter.
The department responded by firing out almost 30,000 pages of documents two days before Christmas, amounting to 10GB of data, which has only served to invite fresh questions about the late billionaire and his social circle.
There were few references to the president in Friday’s batch of files but many more in the latest release.
Trump has not been accused of any crime in relation to Epstein, his fellow New Yorker and one-time Florida social acquaintance, and the appearance of any person’s name in the documents does not imply wrongdoing.
The president has, however, faced intense pressure since this summer to explain his past friendship with Epstein, which Trump has said ended in around 2004 when the two men had a falling out at Mar-a-Lago, the latter’s Palm Beach estate.
One of the most eye-catching records included in the latest tranche of files is an internal email sent by an unnamed assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York dating from January 2020.
They wrote to colleagues explaining that flight records obtained from Epstein’s private jet revealed Trump had flown in it “many more times than previously has been reported.”
There were at least eight such flights between 1993 and 1996 in which Trump was a passenger, according to the message, with Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell present on at least four of them.
That appears to contradict a claim Trump made on Truth Social in January 2024, while campaigning for the presidency, in which he flatly declared: “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ’stupid’ Island.”
A series of emails from the bureau sent in July 2019 allude to possible investigations into 10 other associates and enablers of the deceased sex offender.
“When you get a chance can you give me an update on the status of the 10 CO conspirators?” one from a sender with “FBI New York” signature reads.
