The US Department of Justice on Friday released a new cache of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Epstein files have been a significant political problem for President Donald Trump, with many of his supporters and Republicans in Congress demanding their release. It remains to be seen if this partial release will satisfy Trump’s critics on the issue.

Here are some initial takeaways from the documents:

Not much Trump

The big question before the document release was: How prominently would Trump feature in them? He and Epstein were friends and socialised frequently in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump says they had a falling out in the mid-2000s, before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008.

Friday’s document dump of government files containing hundreds of thousands of pages was therefore notable for the lack of mentions of Trump. The Justice Department said more documents will be released over the next two weeks.

An initial examination of the cache by Reuters found scant photos of Trump or any mentions of him in documents. There was a single photo of Epstein appearing to hold a check with Trump’s name on it, and a separate photo taken inside Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse where a copy of Trump’s 1997 book, ‘Trump: The Art of the Comeback’, was tucked inside a bookshelf.

Trump’s name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein’s private plane that were included in a first batch of material the Justice Department released in February.

Trump and several of his family members were also listed in an Epstein contact book, which was made public during the 2021 trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former associate who was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with Epstein’s crimes.

Trump has often denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein or that he had any knowledge of his crimes when the two socialised in Florida.

Quite a lot of Bill Clinton

The documents contained a number of mentions and photos of former Democratic President Bill Clinton.

There were several photos of Clinton, including one of him in a swimming pool with Maxwell and an unidentified person. Others showed Clinton in a hot tub, and another with a young woman sitting on the armrest of his seat with her arm draped around his shoulders, her face redacted. A fourth was a photo of a painting of Clinton in a blue dress hanging in Epstein’s New York home.

The release of the Clinton photos could conflict with Justice Department policy not to release material related to ongoing investigations. Trump, a Republican, has ordered the Justice Department to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, in what critics said was an effort to shift the focus away from his own relationship with Epstein.

Clinton has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes when the two socialised and traveled together and has said he wishes he had never met Epstein.

Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, responded on the social media platform X, calling the images of Clinton “grainy, 20-plus-year-old photos”, and said Clinton knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes when the two socialised. “This isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Urena said.

1,200 victims and relatives, and 254 masseuses

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress in a letter that the department had identified more than 1,200 victims of Epstein and their relatives during an “exhaustive review” of the documents.

One document was Epstein’s masseuse list, which contained 254 names. All the names were redacted.

Blanche said the documents released on Friday included FBI files from its 2018 and 2006 investigations of Epstein and its investigation of his 2019 death, among other materials.

Heavy redactions, democrats cry foul

Many of the documents released by the Justice Department were heavily redacted. One of the redacted files, a 119-page document that appeared to contain grand jury testimony, was entirely blacked out. Three more documents of 100 pages each were totally redacted.

Some Democrats decried the Justice Department’s failure to release all of the Epstein files by the deadline set by a law passed by Congress in November and signed by President Trump.

Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator, called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to appear before Congress and explain why all the files had not been released.

Chuck Schumer, the senior Senate Democrat, said in a statement, “this set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence.”

Thomas Massie, a House Republican who was a leading sponsor of the Epstein document release law, said on X that Friday’s partial release “fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law” that Trump signed.

Trump and his Justice Department likely will face more criticism in the coming days for the paucity of Friday’s release and the fact that Trump is barely mentioned, while Clinton is. Ultimately, it is likely that Trump has not yet put the Epstein controversy behind him.

• Govt to release more Epstein docs, Trump may feature later.
• Trump orders probe into Clinton’s Epstein ties amid pressure.
• Epstein’s ties to high-profile figures were previously disclosed.

The US Justice Department released hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday that made scant reference to President Donald Trump but extensively featured Democratic former President Bill Clinton.

The release was intended to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite the Republican president’s months-long effort to keep them sealed. Trump for years had promoted conspiracy theories about Epstein, but the case has turned into a political liability for him since his return to the White House in January.

It was not immediately clear how substantive the new materials were, given that many Epstein-related documents have previously been made public since his 2019 death in jail, which was ruled a suicide. Reuters is in the process of reviewing them.

The material included evidence from several law enforcement investigations into Epstein, along with photos of Clinton, long scorned by Trump’s Republicans. But they appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The absence of references to Trump was notable, given that pictures and documents related to him have trickled out of previous Epstein releases for years. Trump’s name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein’s private plane that were part of a first batch of Epstein material the Justice Department released in February.

Trump and several of his family members were also listed in an Epstein contact book, which was made public during the trial of Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Not all documents released

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the initial batch of documents would be followed by additional releases, leaving open the possibility that Trump could feature more prominently in later disclosures.

Trump ordered the Justice Department last month to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, in what critics viewed as an effort to shift the focus away from his own relationship with Epstein.

In one image released on Friday, Clinton can be seen in a swimming pool with Maxwell and another person whose face is blocked out. Clinton, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has previously expressed regret for socialising with Epstein and has said he was not aware of any criminal activity.

The Justice Department added a note to the webpage where it posted links to the documents that said “all reasonable efforts have been made” to redact victims’ personal information, but warned that some could be disclosed inadvertently.

In a letter to Congress, Blanche estimated it would take an additional two weeks for the Justice Department to review other documents for potential release.

There are more than 1,200 names identified as victims or their relatives in the files, he added.

In a statement on Friday, the White House claimed the release demonstrated its transparency and commitment to justice for Epstein’s victims, criticising previous Democratic administrations for not doing the same.

Bipartisan vote pressed for release

But the statement ignored that the disclosures occurred only because Congress forced the administration’s hand, after Trump officials declared earlier this year that no more Epstein files would be made public.

Democrats immediately criticised the administration for failing to release all of the files.

“This set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, who is the subject of a criminal mortgage-fraud investigation by the Justice Department that he says is motivated by politics, said: “They could have been completely ready for this moment, and they’re not, or they’re just simply withholding the materials.”

But many Trump voters accused his administration of covering up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscuring details surrounding his death in a Manhattan jail, where he was awaiting trial on charges of trafficking and abusing underage girls.

Just 44% of American adults who identify as Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the Epstein issue, compared to his 82% overall approval rating among the group, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The issue has damaged Trump’s political standing ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake.

Two days after those disclosures, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s connections to Clinton and JPMorgan bank JPM.N. The following week, despite White House pressure to delay the vote, U.S. lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill forcing the release of the Justice Department records, which Trump then signed into law.

Trump denies knowledge of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking

Trump was once friendly with Epstein until they had a falling out in the mid-2000s, before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein’s sex trafficking.

The law ordering the files’ release allowed the Justice Department to withhold personal information about Epstein’s victims as well as material that would jeopardise an active investigation.

Previous disclosures of Epstein records have revealed that even after his 2008 conviction, he continued corresponding with high-profile figures, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and Britain’s former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal title over revelations about his links to Epstein.

Spokespeople and lawyers for Bannon, Thiel and Mountbatten-Windsor have not responded to Reuters’ requests for comment about their interactions with Epstein.

Summers stepped back from positions at Harvard University, OpenAI and other institutions and said he was deeply ashamed of his actions after documents released by House Democrats in November showed that Summers corresponded with Epstein up through 2019, even seeking relationship advice from him.

JPMorgan paid some of Epstein’s victims $290 million in 2023 to settle claims that it had overlooked his sex trafficking. The bank kept Epstein on as a client for five years after he was convicted of soliciting a minor in 2008.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has installed new plaques at the “Presidential Walk of Fame” located along the West Wing Colonnade of the White House.

The plaques contain direct and politically charged, mocking commentary aimed at recent former US presidents. Reporters spotted the new additions on Wednesday, triggering fresh debate within Washington’s political circles.

One plaque refers to former president Joe Biden as “Sleepy Joe Biden” and labels him “the worst president in American history.” Notably, Biden’s portrait is absent from the walk of fame. Instead, a framed image shows Biden’s signature produced by the presidential autopen.

Former president Barack Obama’s plaque identifies him as “Barack Hussein Obama” and describes him as “one of the most divisive political figures in American history.”

Similarly, the plaque beneath Bill Clinton’s portrait states that “in 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, lost the presidency to President Donald J. Trump.”

According to the White House, several of these plaques were written by President Trump himself. These additions are being described as part of Trump’s broader effort to reshape the White House in line with his political vision.

The White House formally unveiled the Presidential Walk of Fame outside the Oval Office in September. The display includes portraits of all past US presidents, with the exception of Joe Biden.

President Trump has previously overseen other major changes at the White House, including replacing the grass in the Rose Garden with a stone patio and ordering the construction of a new White House ballroom, a project that required the demolition of much of the East Wing.

Political analysts say the plaques represent an unprecedented move in American history, marking the first time such overtly political and controversial narratives about former presidents have been publicly displayed inside the White House. Strong reactions and further debate are expected in the coming days.