WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department on Friday released thousands of heavily redacted documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a disclosure that extensively featured former President Bill Clinton while making scant reference to President Donald Trump.
The release, intended to comply with a law passed by Congress, immediately drew bipartisan criticism for its sweeping redactions and for what opponents described as a politically motivated effort to deflect scrutiny from Trump.
Many of the files were blacked out in their entirety, with the Justice Department acknowledging it was still reviewing hundreds of thousands of additional pages.
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.
Images show ex-president in pool, hot tub with Epstein associates
The partial disclosure was mandated by a law passed in November that required the release of all government files on Epstein, an order that followed the Republican president’s months-long effort to keep them sealed.
The absence of new information on Trump was notable, as his name had appeared on flight manifests in a previous release of Epstein files in February.
It was not immediately clear how much new, substantive information was contained in Friday’s document dump, as many files related to Epstein have been made public since his death in a Manhattan jail, which was ruled a suicide.
‘This isn’t about Clinton’
In a move critics viewed as a bid to shift the political narrative, the Justice Department sought to highlight Clinton’s connections to Epstein. Two agency spokespeople posted images on social media that they said showed the Democratic former president with Epstein’s victims.
“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement. He accused the White House of attempting to “shield themselves” from scrutiny by focusing on the former president.
The newly released photos included images of Clinton in a swimming pool with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate who was convicted of sex trafficking, and another person.
Clinton, who has expressed regret for his association with Epstein appeared in another image in a hot tub.
In a letter to Congress, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted that the names of more than 1,200 victims or their relatives must be redacted from the files by law.
The White House, in a statement, criticised previous administrations for not taking similar action.
However, the disclosure came only after Congress passed legislation forcing the administration’s hand, overriding earlier declarations from Trump officials that no more Epstein files would be made public.
Lawmakers from both parties immediately criticised the administration for what they called an incomplete and unsatisfactory release.
“This set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
Republican US Rep Thomas Massie, a key driver behind the disclosure legislation, said the release fell far short of the law’s requirements. Writing on the social media platform X, Massie stated that Friday’s release “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law”.
The law specifically 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 released documents.
Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2025
