WASHINGTON – The Justice Department's partial release of the long-awaitedJeffrey Epsteinfiles raises important questions, lawmakers and victim advocates say, about potentially botched investigations – and about what other evidence the government may have about potential co-conspirators.
What do the Epstein files show? See photos released by DOJ
Many ofthe thousands of documentsreleased on Dec. 19 to meet a legal deadline included entire files and grand jury transcripts with significant redactions. Other key investigative documents known to be in the government's possession, including information leading to the federal indictment of Epstein in 2019 and of his longtime associateGhislaine Maxwellin 2020 were missing entirely.
The release did confirm, for the first time, that authorities have identified 1,200 alleged victims who were trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell, or by relatives of those victims, whose names needed to be painstakingly redacted from the documents.
But the massive trove did nothing to support longstanding claims by figures including members of PresidentDonald Trump's inner circle,leading Republicansand some Democrats of a government coverup to protect wealthy accomplices of Epstein. The Justice Department released additional documents the afternoon of Dec. 20, CBS News and Politico reported.
Here are some of the key outstanding questions.
More:Epstein files takeaways: Vaginal cream, celebs and redacted photos
What was on Epstein's computers?
An evidence list made public Dec. 19, for instance, described large quantities of computers, hard drives and digital tape recorders seized during searches of Epstein's homes, but their contents were not released. A list of more than 200 of Epstein's masseuses was included, but their names were redacted, per DOJ policy to protect the victims.
And while much has been alleged aboutubiquitous camerascapturing everything that went on in his various mansions and massage rooms, none of that purported video was contained in what the DOJ called its first batch of the "Epstein Library."
Epstein photos show island map, passports, 'Lolita' scrawled on skin
"They didn't even release the victim interviews; just pictures of the tapes of the interviews," said Julie K. Brown, author of the 2021 book "Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story."
"Think about that. A photograph of a tape cassette," Brown said in a Substack post. "This would be funny if it wasn't about a crime involving the rapes of 14-year-old girls."
Investigators have found that, potentially over decades, the former hedge fund manager and international socialite lured girls as young as 14 into his estates in New York, Palm Beach and the Caribbean, paying them cash for massages that at times led to sex.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, who led the charge to force the Trump administration to release the Epstein files, said DOJ's partial release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law," and vowed legal challenges.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, the co-author with Massie of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, said the release amounts to a political cover-up – even after taking into account the DOJ's claim that it is processing the documents as fast as it can.
More:Who is in the Epstein files? A look at the latest names
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department was doing its best to balance its legal disclosure requirements with its obligation to redact all information about the victims from the files. It planned to "release more documents over the next couple of weeks,"he told Fox News.
"So today, several hundred thousand," Blanche said. "And then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more."
Blanche also shot down claims that the Trump administration would try to protect Trump, saying DOJ would by the end of the year release any documents in its possession about him – and anyone else in the files.
"Assuming it's consistent with the law, yes,"Blanche told ABC News. "So there's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald J. Trump or anybody else's name. … We're not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein."Trump and Epstein were close friendsfor more than a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s before falling out.
Giving DOJ 'the benefit of the doubt'?
Khanna said DOJ wasn't going far enough.
"Look, we're willing to give them some benefit of the doubt,"Khanna told CNN. "But what we found out is the most important documents are missing."
"They've hadexcessive redactions," he said.
More:'Grossly fails.' Lawmakers behind Epstein files' release slam DOJ
Do the files mention Donald Trump?
The documents include many photos of Epstein with celebrities, including former President Bill Clinton. He has long been linked to Epstein but, like Trump, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Two of the photos show Clinton in a hot tub and a pool with women whose faces are blacked out, prompting White House and DOJ officials toflood social media with claimshe was with Epstein victims at the time.
Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña denied that, saying in a statement that the Trump administration was trying to use people like Clinton as "scapegoats."
"This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they'll try and hide forever," Ureña said. "So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn't about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be."
More:How Trump and 'terrific guy' Jeffrey Epstein's party boy friendship finally ended
The tranche of photos and other information released Dec. 19 contains almost no references to Trump, despite the fact that the two men were close friends for more than a decade.
Trump's name, like Clinton's and those of dozens of other VIPs, has appeared on flight manifests for Epstein's private jet.Trump has strongly denied wrongdoing. He refused to answer questions Dec. 19 about the DOJ release.
"I really don't want to soil it up by asking questions, even questions that are very fair questions that I'd love to answer," Trump told reporters. "So, I think we have to just stop right here."
See inside infamous Epstein island Caribbean estate in released photos
Democratic lawmakers and victim advocates have openly questioned whether Trump is in the files, noting that he vehemently opposed any release of the DOJ and FBI material for months, and made a failed attempt at arm-twisting Republicans to vote down the bill requiring it.
Trump's allies in Congress, led by House SpeakerMike Johnson, went so far as to refuse − for weeks − to swear in a newly elected Democrat to prevent her tiebreaker vote to order DOJ to release the files.
More:The Epstein saga in Trump's own words. What has he said about it?
What to the files say about earlier Epstein investigations?
For allegedEpstein sexual assault victimMaria Farmer, the release offered confirmation of her longstanding claims that she went to the FBI about Epstein and Maxwell in 1996, about a decade before the sex trafficking investigation that led to his first prosecution, in South Florida, in 2008.
The new documents include an FBI report from Sept. 3, 1996, in which Farmer accuses Epstein of involvement in "child pornography." Farmer, one of the earliest public whistleblowers against Epstein, saidFridaythe bureau failed her, and other victims, by not pursuing her allegations.
"This is a moment for which I have waited three decades, over half of my life," Farmersaid in the statement, issued before the DOJ release. "When I was ignored and hung up on by the FBI in 1996, my world turned upside down, and I felt frozen in time. I faced death threats, ridicule, and mockery by some of the most powerful people on earth."
Farmer described the release as an important step for Epstein victims in holding "the government accountable for their grotesque law enforcement failure, one of the largest in U.S. history."
Added Farmer's lawyer, Helene Weiss, "If the FBI had acted, they could have saved thousands of victims and nearly 30 years of trauma."
What's missing from the DOJ release?
Khanna and Massie said DOJ was flouting the new law by failing to turn over key investigative materials.
That includes information about how federal authorities handled their investigations into Epstein in 2008 and again in 2019 after Brown's Miami Herald expose of a lenient plea agreement between Epstein and local prosecutors.
That second investigation led to Epstein's arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. He died by suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after her conviction on sex trafficking charges.
But more than 350 pages were entirely blacked out.
Documents missing from the earlier South Florida investigation includea 53-count draft indictmentandan 82-page prosecution memofrom 2007 that came to light in victim lawsuits against Epstein in 2020.
The U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida at the time was Alex Acosta, who allowed Epstein to take a lenient plea deal from the local Palm Beach prosecutor on lesser state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Epstein served only 13 months at a Palm Beach facility where he was allowed to leave custody and work out of his office six days a week. Acosta was later tapped by Trump to be his first Secretary of Labor but resigned when the plea deal became public.
See emotional reactions to Epstein files bill clearing Congress in rare moment of unity
Also missing from the Dec. 19 material were key documents from the 2019 federal investigation and prosecution and a reported internal Justice Department probe into failures in its investigations into Epstein.
Massie on Fridaytweeted a copy of the lawshowing that "all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials" must be made public.
Khanna called for accountabiilty for "rich and powerful men who raped underage girls or who covered up for this abuse. The Epstein class needs to go."
The Justice Department has 15 days to produce a report detailing the reasons for withholding or redacting documents.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Do the new Epstein files raise more questions than they answer?