After sifting through “two Eiffel Towers’ worth” of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department has concluded that some 200,000 documents will be at least partially withheld from the public, it said in a letter to Congress on Friday.
The disclosure came as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced at a press conference that the DOJ would be concluding its Epstein data dump with the release of another 3 million files related to the well-connected financier who killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
Three new tranches of files were published on the DOJ’s website on Friday morning. Blanche said they would include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, and that additional files would be posted on the site throughout the day.
In total, some 3.5 million files will be made public in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed into law in November and requires the Justice Department to publish its Epstein-related files.
The Justice Department will also withhold or redact about 200,000 pages that it says are protected by “various privileges,” including attorney-client, “deliberative process,” and “work product” privileges.
Blanche, at the press conference Friday morning, said the Epstein files didn’t contain information that would justify charges against any additional men for abusing women.
“There’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information about men, that we know about, that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute — that is not the case,” he said.
“I don’t think the public and you all are going to uncover information about men who abuse women, unfortunately,” he added.
Still, victims and lawmakers are expected to be on the lookout for files that might reveal more about who else in Epstein’s orbit may have been investigated, including prosecution memos, where prosecutors deliberate the strength of potential criminal charges.
Previously released files indicated that at least some Justice Department officials believed that other people associated with Epstein could be “co-conspirators” of his, although most of their names were redacted.
Several emails included in an earlier disclosure referred to “10 co-conspirators” of Epstein who were served grand jury subpoenas.
The email exchange was partially redacted, but one email included the names of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of trafficking girls to Epstein for sex and sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Jean-Luc Brunel, an associate of Epstein who killed himself in 2022 while awaiting trial in France on rape charges.
It also named Les Wexner, a billionaire who took financial advice from Epstein and later said he regretted his relationship with the financier. Wexner has not been charged with any crime and has said Epstein deceived him.
A spokesperson for Wexner didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
The names of other people in the email were redacted.
Maxwell is the only other person the Justice Department has charged with participating in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
Blanche said the Department would withhold “anything that would jeopardize an active investigation,” but did not say whether an ongoing investigation existed.
In November, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she asked Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to examine a request from President Donald Trump to investigate Epstein’s ties to JPMorgan Chase, former President Bill Clinton, and several business leaders.
“Jay Clayton, in New York, is in charge of any potential investigations, and I’m not going to comment beyond that,” Blanche said Friday.
Blanche also said the Justice Department was not withholding any files for national security or foreign policy purposes, even though the Epstein Files Transparency Act allowed for it. And on Friday, the department asked a Manhattan judge to unseal material from the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, which represents numerous Epstein victims, that it had given to prosecutors after a grand jury subpoena.
In the letter to Congress, Bondi and Blanche write that it would provide members of the House and Senate judiciary committees with a report summarizing redactions and list “all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials.”
If you are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673) or visit its website to receive confidential support.
