The federal law requires the Department of Justice to release any and all remaining documentation as part of a major bipartisan push for transparency.
The US Department of Justice has released further files relating to Jeffrey Epstein.
The DoJ faced a Friday deadline to make public its remaining records on Epstein, a convicted sex offender and wealthy financier who had connections to some of the world’s most influential figures.
The release comes one month after the Epstein Files Transparency Act was enacted into law following its signing by President Donald Trump. The federal legislation requires the Department of Justice to release any remaining documentation as part of a bipartisan push for transparency.
Earlier on Friday, it was announced the files would not be released in their entirety before the legal deadline, according to US deputy attorney general Todd Blanch.
Democrats criticised the move, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying: “The Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some. Failing to do so is breaking the law.”
The Department of Justice has stressed that any names mentioned in the documents do not imply wrongdoing.
In a privacy notice at the top of the website where the files were published, the department said “all reasonable efforts have been made to review and redact personal information” relating to victims and other private individuals.
It added: “That said, because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content, including matters of a sexual nature.”
Among the roughly 300,000 newly released documents are photographs showing former US president Bill Clinton in a swimming pool with Ghislaine Maxwell. Another image appears to show him in a hot tub with an unidentified woman. The photos have been released without context, and being pictured or mentioned does not imply any wrongdoing.
Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, also appears in photographs alongside women whose faces have been blacked out.
Another image shows Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with Ghislaine Maxwell. He is seen lying across the laps of several people, whose faces have been redacted.
Jeffrey Epstein’s contact book has also been published, featuring the names of thousands of individuals. Addresses and phone numbers have been removed.
The files also include a document titled “D Masseuse List”, which contains 254 entries. All names on the list have been redacted.
One image shows Ghislaine Maxwell outside 10 Downing Street. As with many of the photographs, it has been released without further explanation. Any involvement in the files does not imply any wrongdoing.
Maxwell recently filed a petition seeking to overturn her sex trafficking conviction, citing what she described as “substantial new evidence”. She is currently incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security women’s prison in Bryan, Texas.
