The Justice Department has released a new batch of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – documents that include many more mentions of President Donald Trump than last week’s dump.
DOJ released the initial batch on Friday — the deadline for it to make them public after Congress passed a new law last month — and continues to gradually release additional documents.
Below are some takeaways from the latest release.
We’re continuing to learn potentially significant things about the government’s handling of the Epstein investigations.
The new batch of documents, for example, includes evidence that prosecutors sought to investigate and potentially charge more people.
A series of apparent FBI emails from July 2019 cite “10 co-conspirators.”
“When you get a chance can you give me an update on the status of the 10 CO conspirators?” reads one July 7, 2019, email from a sender with “FBI New York” in their signature.
Another email from two days later requests “an update on the 10 co-conspirators by COB today.”
A third cites efforts to locate and serve these people with subpoenas. It indicates some were indeed contacted. One who wasn’t is described as “a wealthy business man in Ohio.”
The documents also cite – but don’t appear to actually include – memos after Epstein’s August 2019 death outlining co-conspirators that could be charged.
To date, only Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend, have been charged.
We don’t actually have these memos or the names of the alleged “co-conspirators,” so we don’t know whom these could be in reference to. It’s not clear what kinds of crimes might have been at issue. And while many have been on the hunt for a so-called “client list” that the FBI says doesn’t exist, it’s not clear whether these documents actually implicate others in alleged crimes.
We don’t know what happened with these potential prosecutions. The fact that the cases were never charged might suggest that the investigations didn’t substantiate such charges. But the use of “co-conspirators” suggests that, at least at one point, investigators felt others were involved in Epstein’s crimes.
And these are the kinds of documents that lots of people have been anticipating for a very long time – documents that might suggest who else might be held accountable for Epstein’s crimes.
You can bet there will be lots of pressure on the Trump administration to make sure they get produced.
Friday’s initial batch included lots of Bill Clinton but not much Trump. This batch features a much heavier dose of the current president.
And perhaps most notably, the documents show how Trump’s name came up in the context of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s investigations and prosecutions. (Trump has never been accused by law enforcement of wrongdoing related to Epstein’s crimes, and he has denied any wrongdoing.)
There is a 2021 subpoena from the Maxwell case to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club seeking “any and all employment records relating to” a redacted individual. (While it’s not clear who the individual is, we’ve known that one of Epstein’s accusers, the late Virginia Giuffre, formerly worked at Mar-a-Lago.)
There is a 2020 email from an assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York noting Trump flew on Epstein’s plane eight times (something that’s since become public knowledge via the release of flight records). The assistant US attorney also says two of the flights included “women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case.” At least four of the flights included Maxwell, according to the flight records.
There are also tips to the FBI involving Trump and his relationship with Epstein, with little or no indication about whether those tips were followed up on or corroborated.
Aside from those references, the new document dump features an intriguing apparent reference to Trump.
Included is a letter — which the Justice Department now says is “FAKE” — signed by “J. Epstein” and addressed to another infamous convicted sex offender, disgraced ex-USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.
“We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential,” the letter says. “Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.”
The letter then includes another lewd apparent reference to Trump. (It doesn’t use the word Trump, but it’s from 2019, when Trump was serving as president.)
It then suggests that, unlike Trump, “we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair.”
Notably, the letter is postmarked three days after Epstein’s death in prison, which has been ruled a suicide. The author alludes to having “taken the ‘short route’ home,” and wishes Nassar, “Good luck!” The letter was marked as “return to sender.”
What to make of this? There are so many questions that are unanswered here.
DOJ said Tuesday afternoon the FBI had determined the letter was “FAKE,” in part because the writing didn’t appear to match Epstein’s. (An FBI document from 2020 indicates a handwriting analysis had been requested, but the documents released Tuesday don’t include the results.)
The DOJ statement also noted the letter was postmarked in Virginia, while Epstein had been held in New York; the return address listed the wrong jail; and it was processed three days after Epstein died.
Even if this letter were indeed from Epstein, it would just be a claim.
Earlier Tuesday, the DOJ didn’t invoke this letter specifically but broadly suggested the allegations raised against Trump – likely including the FBI tips mentioned above – weren’t true.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the DOJ said. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
CNN has reached out to the White House about the latest batch of documents, including that letter.
But there are just too many unanswered questions about this letter to draw definitive conclusions.
At the very least, the new disclosures are the kinds of things Trump once indicated he worried would unnecessarily tarnish people.
Trump in a 2024 Fox News interview cautioned about “phony stuff” in the Epstein files that had the potential to “affect people’s lives.” He echoed that Monday night, warning that merely being in a picture with Epstein could ruin someone’s reputation.
The release of these materials previously has been marred by DOJ mishandling, and that’s continuing.
First, DOJ’s initial Tuesday statement is extraordinary. It reads as if it’s from Trump’s personal lawyer – i.e. its reference to how this information, if credible, “certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump” – rather than a neutral handler of this information.
That’s a huge contrast to how the DOJ handled Clinton’s appearance in the files released Friday. Back then, a DOJ spokesperson pointed to an image of Clinton appearing in a hot tub with a redacted individual and suggestively labeled the redacted person a “victim” of Epstein’s abuse.
Clinton, like Trump, has never been accused by law enforcement of wrongdoing related to Epstein. On Monday – before the latest batch was released — the former president’s spokesman encouraged DOJ to release everything it has related to Clinton, claiming that “selective releases” were about “insinuation,” not transparency.
The DOJ’s questionable handling of the files has also been underscored by the curious and heavy-handed redactions that go beyond the limits of the law Congress passed last month.
The 2020 email from the assistant US attorney redacts the author’s name, for instance. Other emails appear to redact the names of government officials, meaning it’s not clear which officials were involved in key decisions and discussions – including emails from around the time of Epstein’s much-criticized non-prosecution deal in the late 2000s.
And lastly, the documents were apparently uploaded Monday, then removed, then reposted again, according to The Washington Post.
It’s not clear why that happened or whether the documents that were reposted match the ones that had been initially been posted.
The Justice Department has already failed to comply with the deadline to release all of these documents, which were due in their totality on Friday.
And after that initial release, it briefly pulled back some documents that had been posted, including one image that featured a photo of Trump, which was later restored.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the photo was removed due to caution about potentially featuring an Epstein victim.
“It has nothing to do with President Trump,” Blanche said this weekend. “The absurdity of pulling down a single photo because of President Trump is laughable.”
