At least 8,000 new documents related to the Epstein case became available on Tuesday on the U.S. Department of Justice website, accused by Democratic opponents of withholding information due to the slow release of these files. The new documents include hundreds of videos or audio recordings, among them surveillance camera footage from August 2019, the month Epstein was found dead in his cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Following last week’s release, the new batch now contains emails, court documents, and hundreds of references to Donald Trump—practically absent from the first declassification, according to The New York Times. Notably, members of the Democratic Party had denounced the erasure of material related to Trump. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer presented a resolution on Monday, December 22, calling for legal action against the administration for not publishing the entirety of the Epstein files. A group of victims of the former New York financier criticized on Monday that only a “fraction” of the files had been made public, highlighting the “anomalous and extreme” redaction of elements.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche attributed the delay to the need to protect the identity of more than 1,000 Epstein victims and denied on Sunday allegations that Trump was being shielded. Trump was a close friend of Epstein in the past. On Monday, during a media appearance at Mar-a-Lago, Trump stated that last week’s publication of thousands of photographs from the Epstein papers risked implicating “very respected” people unconnected to the financier’s crimes.
A standout item in the new release is an email sent by the Southern District of New York prosecutor on January 7, 2020. Titled “Epstein Flight Logs,” it reveals: “we wanted to inform you that the flight logs we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than had been previously reported—even during the period we anticipate bringing charges in the Maxwell case,” referring to Ghislaine Maxwell, the closest friend of the convicted pedophile financier. Maxwell was sentenced five years ago to 20 years in prison, which she is currently serving, for her complicity in the sex trafficking network.
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) almost unanimously, requiring the full publication of the documents by last Friday.
Although he agreed during his 2024 campaign to make these files public, the U.S. president later backtracked, denouncing a “farce” instrumentalized by Democrats.
His supporters, obsessed with this scandal, rebelled when the Department of Justice announced this boreal summer that it had found no new elements justifying the release of additional documents or new legal actions. (CubaSí)
