WASHINGTON, Dec 20 — The US Justice Department released thousands of heavily redacted documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday that made scant reference to President Donald Trump but extensively featured Democratic former President Bill Clinton.
The absence of references to Trump was notable given that pictures and documents related to him have trickled out of previous Epstein releases for years.
Trump's name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein's private plane that were part of a first batch of Epstein material the Justice Department released in February, for instance.
The partial release was intended to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite the Republican president's months-long effort to keep them sealed.
The scandal surrounding Epstein has become a self-inflicted political wound for Trump, who for years had promoted conspiracy theories about Epstein to his supporters.
It was not immediately clear how substantive the new materials were, given that many Epstein-related documents have previously been made public since his 2019 death in jail, which was ruled a suicide.
Many of the files were heavily redacted — several documents with 100 pages or more were entirely blacked out — and the Justice Department acknowledged it was still reviewing hundreds of thousands of additional pages for possible release.
Shortly after the release, the US military launched airstrikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday in retaliation for an attack on US personnel.
The material included evidence from several investigations into Epstein, along with photos of Clinton, long scorned by Republicans. But they appeared to include few, if any, photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein's well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s before they had a falling out prior to Epstein's first conviction in 2008.
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein's crimes.
'Not about Bill Clinton'
The Justice Department sought to draw attention to Clinton, with two agency spokespeople posting on social media images that they said showed him with Epstein victims.
Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Angel Urena, said in a statement that the White House was attempting to "shield themselves" from scrutiny by focusing on the former president.
"They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year old photos as they want, but this isn't about Bill Clinton," he wrote.
Trump ordered the Justice Department last month to investigate Clinton's ties to Epstein, in what critics viewed as an effort to shift the focus away from his own relationship with Epstein.
There were more than 1,200 victims or their relatives whose names must be redacted from the files, said Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche in a letter to Congress.
In a statement, the White House claimed the release demonstrated its transparency and commitment to justice for Epstein's victims, criticising previous Democratic administrations for not doing the same.
But the statement ignored that the disclosures occurred only because Congress forced the administration's hand, after Trump officials declared earlier this year that no more Epstein files would be made public.
Some lawmakers immediately criticised the administration for failing to release all of the files.
Republican US representative Thomas Massie, a driving force behind the legislation, said on X that Friday's release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law."
The disclosure law required the Justice Department to turn over information about its handling of the Epstein investigation, including internal reports and emails. None of those materials appeared to be in the batch of documents the government released on Friday.
The law allowed the Justice Department to withhold personal information about Epstein's victims as well as material that would jeopardise an active investigation.
