The Department of Justice has revealed hundreds of paperwork in one other batch of information from investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, marking the most important launch but, with many references to President Donald Trump.
Tuesday’s newly launched paperwork embrace a whole bunch of emails in addition to jail and court docket correspondences from prosecutors investigating Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein within the wake of his dying in jail in 2019, which was dominated a suicide.
In one message from January 2020, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan claimed that flight data confirmed Trump “traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware),” together with through the interval wherein prosecutors have been making ready to cost within the case in opposition to Maxwell.
There have been at the least eight flights between 1993 and 1996 wherein Trump was a passenger, in keeping with the message. Maxwell was additionally current on at the least 4 of these flights, the prosecutor — whose title is redacted — wrote.
“We’ve just finished reviewing the full records (more than 100 pages of very small script) and didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road,” the prosecutor added.
In a press release accompanying the company’s announcement of the most recent batch of 30,000 pages, the Justice Department stated that “some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.”
“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,” the assertion stated. “Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims.”
The paperwork additionally embrace a number of ideas collected by the FBI about Trump’s involvement with Epstein and events at their properties within the early 2000s.
The messages don’t state whether or not any follow-up investigations have been pursued or if the allegations are corroborated.
Trump, who had a yearslong relationship with Epstein till the early 2000s, isn’t accused of wrongdoing in connection together with his crimes, and one’s look inside the information doesn’t counsel in any other case.
The Justice Department did not launch all the information associated to Epstein’s circumstances in its possession regardless of federal legislation signed by Trump requiring the administration to publicly disclose every little thing it has by Friday, December 19.
An preliminary spherical of long-awaited paperwork, together with images of Epstein with high-profile figures, did not advance the general public’s understanding of the scope of his alleged crimes and connections to an alleged intercourse trafficking ring accused of exploiting and abusing younger women.
There have been heavy redactions, together with dozens of pages of grand jury testimony and beforehand sealed court docket filings that have been almost totally blacked out.
The legislation requires the discharge of probably hundreds of paperwork which are usually shielded from public view, together with grand jury testimony, settlements, investigative notes and inside data associated to the Epstein and Maxwell circumstances
It additionally requires the discharge of paperwork associated to Epstein’s jailhouse dying. Maxwell was convicted of intercourse trafficking in 2021 and is serving a 20-year jail sentence.
After an preliminary launch of paperwork beneath the Epstein Files Transparency Act , the Justice Department eliminated greater than 20 information — together with a picture of a credenza inside Epstein’s house, the place {a photograph} of Trump with bikini-clad girls was sitting in an open drawer.
Those pictures have been later restored, however the Justice Department’s violation of the authorized deadline and the obvious removing of pictures solely fueled outrage and demand for the complete launch of the information.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated the Justice Department wanted time to make vital redactions to guard survivors.
“You’re talking about a million or so pages of documents — virtually all of them contain victim information,” he advised NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday.
He stated officers weren’t eradicating any mentions of Trump within the paperwork, extra of that are anticipated to be rolled out over the approaching weeks.
“We are not redacting information around President Trump,” Blanche stated.
After the Justice Department restored the picture of Trump taken from Epstein’s credenza, the company stated in a press release that “there is no evidence that any Epstein victims are depicted in the photograph, and it has been reposted without any alteration or redaction.”
More than a dozen survivors of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s abuse criticized the administration’s partial launch of the information, which have been “riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation,” they stated.
“At the same time, numerous victim identities were left unredacted, causing real and immediate harm,” they wrote in a press release Monday. “No financial documents were released. Grand jury minutes, though approved by a federal judge for release, were fully blacked out — not the scattered redactions that might be expected to protect victim names, but 119 full pages blacked out.”
They additionally stated the information made it tough to search out supplies “that would be most relevant to our search for accountability,” with no steering from the Justice Department for navigating the information or acquiring their very own copies.
“While clearer communication would not change the fact that a law was broken, its absence suggests an ongoing intent to keep survivors and the public in the dark as much as possible and as long as possible,” they wrote.
Members of Congress have instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi might be held in contempt for failing to launch paperwork on deadline.
The first batch of information appeared to prominently characteristic images of former President Bill Clinton with Epstein and Maxwell, which the White House instantly pounced on.
A spokesperson for Clinton accused the administration of utilizing “selective releases to imply wrongdoing” and known as on the Justice Department to “immediately release any remaining materials” from the Epstein information “referring to, mentioning or containing {a photograph} of” the previous president.
“Someone or something is protected,” wrote Clinton’s deputy chief of employees Angel Ureña. “We do not know whom, what or why. But we do know this: We need no such protection.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-epstein-plane-doj-files-b2889315.html