The US Department of Justice has initiated a monumental release of documents related to the investigation into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Hundreds of thousands of files, including court records, photographs, and video footage, were uploaded to the department's website on Friday night, causing significant traffic delays due to an "extremely high volume of search requests."
Staggering Scale of the Release
This initial data dump represents the first major tranche of documents made public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that "several hundred thousand" documents were released ahead of a legal deadline of midnight on Friday. He explained on Fox News that the process of protecting victims' identities meant thousands more documents would be disclosed over the coming weeks.
"We are looking at every single piece of paper," Mr Blanche stated, emphasising the need to ensure "every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected." He anticipates releasing several hundred thousand more files in the next couple of weeks.
Political and Royal Repercussions
The release follows US President Donald Trump signing the legislation last month to ensure the files' publication, a move that came despite his previous resistance and claims the issue was a "Democrat hoax." The paedophile financier was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges; his death was officially ruled a suicide.
All eyes are now on whether the newly released files contain further information about Prince Andrew. The Duke of York's association with Epstein has led to his dramatic fall from public life. Earlier releases from the Epstein estate, facilitated by Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee, included some of Andrew's correspondence with the financier.
This led to King Charles III officially stripping his brother of his HRH style and prince title. Andrew has long faced allegations, which he strenuously denies, of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager trafficked by Epstein. He paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault claim with Ms Giuffre in 2022.
Ongoing Scrutiny and Legal Obligations
US politicians have recently criticised the former royal for his "silence" after he missed a deadline to respond to a request for an interview about Epstein. Andrew stepped back from royal duties in 2019 following his widely criticised Newsnight interview, but scrutiny intensified with the publication of Ms Giuffre's posthumous memoir and prior document releases.
Tens of thousands of records concerning Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving a prison sentence, have already been made public through various US civil and criminal cases. This latest release by the Department of Justice represents the most comprehensive effort yet to fulfil the legal obligation for transparency surrounding one of the most notorious sex trafficking cases in modern history.
