The Justice Department on Friday released more than 3 million pages of files related to the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after Congress passed a law last year forcing the Trump administration to do so.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference the Justice Department has now completed its review of the files and that the White House had “no oversight” of the process. The documents released Friday contain references to President Donald Trump and other powerful figures, including Elon Musk, Bill Clinton and a former Obama White House counsel.
Officials at the FBI compiled a list of sexual assault allegations related to President Donald Trump this past August — many of which appear to have come from unverified tips — and the list was included as part of the millions of documents in the new Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Justice Department on Friday.
It’s not clear why the FBI officials created the list of allegations related to Trump last year. The document was included in emails that were sent by officials in the FBI’s New York field office on the Child Exploitation & Human Trafficking Task Force. Trump has long denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
There are more than a dozen allegations included in the document. “Yellow highlighting is for the salacious piece,” one official writes to explain how the allegations were being sorted.
Two versions of the document appeared to have been removed from the Justice Department’s website for a time Friday afternoon before they were restored without any apparent changes. A DOJ official said the document was down “due to overload” and was back online.
The allegations appear to be unverified, and the officials note that some are secondhand information. They appear to have been allegations that were received through the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center, which takes tips by phone and electronically. The document notes that in many instances, there was no contact made with the individuals who sent in the allegations, or no contact information was provided.
Some of the allegations were followed up on. One was sent to the FBI’s Washington field office to conduct an interview, and another was deemed not credible, according to the document.
“Was there anything in the file re follow up with the below individuals? 302s. etc?” one official writes.
There are also allegations made in the document against former President Bill Clinton, who has denied wrongdoing related to Epstein.
Asked for comment on allegations against Trump in the documents, the White House referred a reporter to the Justice Department press release, which says, “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act. Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims 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 have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
