The Justice Department on Friday resumed disclosures of its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, posting what it said is the largest batch yet of records from the case. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents, along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, and that the files had been posted to the department’s website. Blanche also acknowledged that some people seeking more information about what the government knew may not be satisfied by the latest output.
In its renewed release, the Justice Department said the documents were disclosed under the law enacted after months of public and political pressure. The act requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his longtime confidant and former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, after lawmakers criticized the department for making only a limited release in December. The Justice Department said officials needed more time to review additional materials discovered later and to ensure sensitive information about victims was not made public.
Blanche said the Justice Department had missed a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files. He said the department tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needed to be redacted, or blacked out. The Justice Department also denied it had sought to shield Donald Trump, who has said he cut ties with Epstein years earlier, from potential embarrassment.
The new batch includes records about some of Epstein’s well-known associates. Among them, the documents include references to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew, and they also include email correspondence between Epstein and Elon Musk and other prominent contacts from across the political spectrum. The files additionally include a spreadsheet created last August summarizing calls to the FBI’s National Threat Operation Center or to a hotline established by prosecutors from people claiming, without corroboration, to have knowledge of wrongdoing by Trump.
Thousands of references to Trump appear in the files, according to the Justice Department’s posted records. The disclosures include emails in which Epstein and others shared news articles about Trump, commented on his policies or politics, or traded gossip about him and his family. The records also show alleged efforts by prosecutors in New York to get Prince Andrew to agree to be interviewed as part of their Epstein sex-trafficking probe, alongside multiple references to the former prince across different types of materials, including news clippings and guest lists for dinners organized by Epstein.
The released records also show Elon Musk reached out to Epstein on at least two occasions to plan visits to the Caribbean island tied to many of the allegations about Epstein’s abuse, including purported exchanges about helicopter travel and scheduling. Musk did not respond to emails seeking comment from reporters, according to the report. Musk, however, previously said on X in 2025 that “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” in response to House Democrats releasing an Epstein calendar that mentioned a potential Musk visit. The Justice Department files, the report said, also include additional attempts to connect other powerful figures with women, including New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch.
Steve Tisch told the report in a statement that he had a “brief association” with Epstein in which they emailed about adult women and other topics, and he said he “never went to his island” and “deeply regrets” the association. The disclosures also show Steve Bannon, a conservative activist who served as Trump’s White House strategist earlier in the president’s first term, bantered with Epstein about politics and discussed get-togethers, including a March 29, 2019 message about Epstein’s ability to help arrange a flight for Bannon in Rome. The exchange did not show how the logistics were ultimately resolved.
Other prominent contacts appearing in the released records include Howard Lutnick, who is now Trump’s commerce secretary, and former Obama White House general counsel Kathy Ruemmler. The report said Lutnick’s wife accepted an invitation in December 2012 for the couple to visit Epstein’s island for lunch, and that another meeting occurred in 2011, according to a schedule shared with Epstein. Lutnick has said he cut ties with Epstein long ago, and a Commerce Department spokesman said Lutnick had “limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.”
Ruemmler is included in multiple exchanges in the records, the report said, including an email from Epstein advising that Democrats should stop demonizing Trump as a Mafia-type figure even as Trump was derided as a “maniac.” A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler is general counsel and chief legal officer, said in a statement that Ruemmler “had a professional association with Jeffrey Epstein when she was a lawyer in private practice” and “regrets ever knowing him.”
The latest disclosure arrives after tens of thousands of pages were released last month, including previously released flight logs showing Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s and photographs of Clinton. The report said that none of Epstein’s victims who have gone public have publicly accused Trump or Clinton of wrongdoing; Trump and Clinton have each said they had no knowledge that Epstein was abusing underage girls. Epstein died by suicide in August 2019 in a New York jail cell a month after being indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges.
The records released Friday also touch on the broader legal history around Epstein’s case. In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18, and the report said investigators had gathered evidence of sexual abuse of underage girls at Epstein’s Palm Beach home. It said U.S. prosecutors agreed not to pursue federal charges in exchange for the guilty plea to lesser state charges. A draft indictment released Friday, the report said, contemplated federal charges against Epstein as well as three other people described as his personal assistants and suspected of participating in a conspiracy to recruit underage girls for lewd acts.
The report said Maxwell was convicted by a federal jury in New York in 2021 of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. It said U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, and it referenced Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused Epstein in lawsuits of arranging sexual encounters with her at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, academics and others, allegations that those named denied. It added that Giuffre died by suicide last year at age 41.
The Justice Department described the latest batch as part of its ongoing compliance with the transparency law, even as it said the public thirst for answers may not end with any single release. Blanche’s comment that “There’s a hunger, or a thirst, for information that I don’t think will be satisfied by the review of these documents” underscored how the rollout has become entwined with both legal scrutiny and political debate since Epstein’s death.