Attorney General Pam Bondi teased the public release of government documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein during a Fox News appearance Wednesday, declaring, “Breaking news right now, you're going to see some Epstein information released."
The Justice Department later acknowledged the files expected to be released Thursday have largely already been circulating in the public domain and are unlikely to include any new bombshells about the sex trafficking case that has been a favorite subject of conspiracy theorists.
The Justice Department said it was making the documents public to show its commitment to transparency. But the rollout of the files — which were given to political commentators in binders that read “The Epstein Files: Phase I” at the White House Thursday afternoon — showed the administration's preference for conservative influencers with large social media followings.
By Thursday evening, the files had not been provided to Justice Department reporters or posted publicly online.
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The documents are unlikely to satisfy online sleuths eager for fresh details about Epstein’s crimes and connections to famous people that have long been the subject of intense media scrutiny. The lack of new information drew criticism even from some conservatives. “GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wrote on social media, calling the rollout a “complete disappointment.”
Bondi suggested in a Thursday letter to FBI Director Kash Patel that more records were recently discovered. She ordered the FBI to hand over “the full and complete Epstein files” to her by Friday morning, and directed Patel to “conduct an immediate investigation” into why her order to the FBI to turn over all documents was not followed.
President Donald Trump, who was in office when Epstein was arrested, suggested while campaigning last year that he'd seek to open up the government's files.
Epstein was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls in the early 2000s, but wound up serving just 13 months in jail. He was indicted on federal charges in New York in 2019, more than a decade after he secretly struck a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of similar charges of sex trafficking.
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The case has drawn widespread attention because of Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s links to royals, presidents and billionaires. Maxwell herself is the daughter of the late British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who once owned the New York Daily News.
Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein’s criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests. In January 2024, a court unsealed a trove of documents that had been collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre.
Much of the material, including transcripts of victim interviews and old police reports, had already been publicly known. They included mentions of Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Britain's Prince Andrew and magician David Copperfield, as well as testimony from one victim who said she met Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Florida home but nothing untoward happened with him.
The previously released files included a 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump’s Atlantic City casino but didn’t say if she actually met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing. Trump has also said that he once thought Epstein was a “terrific guy,” but that they later had a falling out.
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In 2023, The Associated Press obtained thousands of pages of records shedding light on the final days of Epstein’s life at a now-shuttered federal jail in Manhattan. They included emails between jail officials, psychological evaluations, internal agency reports, memos and other records.
The Justice Department’s Inspector General later issued a report finding that a “combination of negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures” by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and jail workers enabled Epstein to take his own life in August 2019. The watchdog report found no evidence of foul play.
