The U.S. Department of Justice will not be releasing all of its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by Friday’s deadline, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, defying legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
In an interview with Fox News, Blanche said the department would "release several hundred thousand documents," on Friday, "and then over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more."
Blanche attributed the missed deadline to the arduous work of redacting some identifying details of the disgraced financier's victims.
"There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim," he said.
The law that calls for disseminating these documents publicly was clear that "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices," related to Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell were to be released by Dec. 19.
"President Trump signed that law 30 days ago," Blanche said. "And we have been working tirelessly since that day to make sure that we get every single document that we have within the Department of Justice, review it and get it to the American public."
Anticipation about what those files will show is running high after they have been the subject of conspiracy theories and speculation about Epstein's friendships with Trump, former president Bill Clinton, former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and others.
House Democrats, which issued a subpoena for the photos that Epstein had in his possession before he died in a New York jail cell in 2019, have already released dozens of images from his estate showing Trump, Clinton and Mountbatten-Windsor, who lost his royal title and privileges this year amid scrutiny of his relationship with the wealthy financier.
On Thursday, Democrats released more photos, including Epstein cooking with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman. Another shows Epstein chatting with professor and political activist Noam Chomsky on board a private plane.
This undated photo released by Democrats on the House oversight committee on Thursday shows Jeffrey Epstein talking with Noam Chomsky. (House oversight committee/Associated Press) |
