FORMER president Bill Clinton can be seen cozying up to infamous sex predator Jeffrey Epstein in multiple pictures in the newly-released files – and appears alongside several unidentified women.
The Department of Justice finally released the first tranche of long-sealed federal records on Epstein in four data sets at 4pm ET on Friday.
The partial dump forces into daylight a substantial but incomplete official account of the disgraced billionaire paedophile, his alleged sex-trafficking network and his decades-long proximity to global power.
Thousands of PDF links lead to pictures such as Bill Clinton relaxing with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and a mystery woman in a swimming pool.
A portrait of the former president sporting a blue dress and red high heels is snapped hanging in the monster’s Manhattan pad.
Other unusual images show disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lying across the laps of five women while sharing a laugh with Ghislaine Maxwell, Clinton and Michael Jackson posing alongside an unidentified woman and Richard Branson arm-in-arm with Epstein.
A run of photos show Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger socialising with Clinton, Maxwell and an anonymous woman.
There is no suggestion that these images suggest misconduct, and many of the individuals shown have denied any involvement in wrongdoing connected to Epstein.
White House officials reacted to the bombshell photos of Bill Clinton lounging in the pool, with Communications Director Steven Cheung describing him as “just chilling, without a care in the world”.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt simply remarked “Oh my”.
Clinton’s spokesman Angel Ureña responded on X by vehemently defending Clinton and suggesting that the spate of pictures are being used as a smokescreen.
He said: “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.”
One section of the files has around 170 redacted images of women in sexual positions or simply titled “nude”.
A “masseuse list” containing 254 redacted names appears elsewhere.
The material made public represents only an initial batch, not the full archive required to be released on Firday under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, despite the law’s clear deadline of December 19.
Justice Department officials say “several hundred thousand documents” have been published so far, with further releases promised over the coming weeks.
Republican and Democrat representatives alike have criticised the release for failing to comply with standards set out in the Epstein Transparency Act.
But White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded by lauding the Trump administration as “the most transparent in history”.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche explained the DOJ was taking pains to ensure that the identities of Epstein’s hundreds of victims were redacted from the records, hence the delay.
“I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today,” Blanche said.
“And those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr Epstein.”
“So today, several hundred thousand and then over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” he added.
Even in partial form, the release brings into public view core elements of the government’s own investigative record – material that had remained sealed for years amid intense public scrutiny and political pressure.
More than 300 gigabytes of investigative material is set to be out in the open following a new federal law that left the Justice Department with no choice but to publish what it has held for years.
It lands after two decades of secrecy and sweetheart deals that allowed Epstein to offend with impunity until his death in prison in 2019.
The files span the FBI’s two major probes into Epstein: the first, launched in Florida in 2006 and quietly defused by a notorious non-prosecution agreement; and the second, a New York investigation that finally led to his 2019 federal sex-trafficking indictment.
Epstein pleaded not guilty, then died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial.
What’s in the drop?
Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Justice Department was required to release “searchable and downloadable” copies of virtually all unclassified Epstein- and Ghislaine Maxwell-related records in its possession.
That includes FBI case files, search-warrant materials from raids on Epstein’s homes in Florida, New York and his private island Little Saint James.
It also features interview memos, financial and bank records, travel logs from commercial and private flights, internal Justice Department communications, corporate records, and documents relating to Epstein’s death.
Federal judges also cleared the way for the release of grand jury materials from the Epstein indictment, the Maxwell trial and a related Florida probe – though courts have warned much of that material may already be familiar.
What the law does not allow is redactions for “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity,” even when the names involved belong to presidents, billionaires or foreign dignitaries.
Victims’ identities, child sexual abuse material, classified documents and anything that could jeopardize an active federal investigation may still be withheld, but every redaction must now be publicly justified.
Epstein’s global elite pals
The newly released material also sharpens the global picture around Epstein — not just who he knew, but how far his influence and access reportedly travelled once he had money, contacts and kompromat-style rumours swirling around him.
Epstein was photographed with Trump decades ago, lived in Florida at the same time and moved in overlapping social circles.
Trump has long said the two men fell out before Epstein’s convictions and that he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in the 2000s.
His claims were supported by emails released in a major House Oversight dump last month.
That November dump saw more than 20,000 mostly unredacted files released.
They showed Epstein complaining he had been booted from the club and that Ghislaine Maxwell had been ordered to stop recruiting girls there.
Virginia Giuffre, who was recruited while working at Mar-a-Lago, has repeatedly said Trump was not involved in Epstein’s abuse.
Still, the political fight reignited when Democrats released selectively redacted emails mentioning Trump, prompting Republicans to accuse them of a smear – before dumping the far larger unredacted archive that deepened the picture of Epstein’s elite access.
In the November House Oversight dump, newly disclosed emails appeared to confirm Epstein’s connection to former Prince Andrew went well beyond casual socialising.
The tranche included messages in which Epstein appeared to confirm the authenticity of the infamous 2001 photograph of Andrew with Virginia Giuffre – directly undercutting Andrew’s long-running claims it may have been fake.
The same document set showed Andrew reaching out to Epstein for help as Giuffre’s allegations were about to explode into public view.
Andrew has denied wrongdoing and later paid a reported $12 million settlement while maintaining his innocence.
But the paper trail added fresh weight to the allegation that Epstein wasn’t just collecting powerful friends, he was actively managing their crises.
The same cache also laid out Epstein’s continued links to British political power.
Emails showed Peter Mandelson stayed in contact with Epstein until at least 2016 – long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction – deepening questions about how a convicted sex offender kept a seat at elite tables across borders and years.
Mandelson has admitted maintaining the friendship longer than he should have, but the correspondence reinforced a recurring theme in the Epstein story: reputations were allegedly protected, not policed.
And then there’s the Kremlin thread – the kind of line that reads like a spy novel, until it’s sitting in an official archive.
Among the revelations previously teased in those Oversight files was evidence that Epstein offered to advise the Kremlin in 2018 on how Vladimir Putin could approach talks with President Donald Trump, reportedly suggesting Trump needed to be seen as “getting something” from negotiations.
Last week, newly released photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate show several elite figures from former Prince Andrew to Donald Trump, Woody Allen and Richard Branson.
The bombshell snaps were released by Trump’s Democrat enemies in the House Oversight Committee on Friday, showing a string of powerful figures in the convicted sex trafficker’s orbit.
The release includes snaps of ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and others.
Lawmakers reported receiving 95,000 images from Epstein’s estate, but the Dems released just 19 of them, apparently selecting those they believed would be the most shocking and newsworthy.
And on Thursday night, a fresh batch of Epstein-related images was released – just hours before the deadline.
The photos, some partially redacted, include chilling images showing handwritten passages from Lolita scrawled on a person’s foot, chest and neck.
One message reads: “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.”
Other phrases include “she was Lola in slacks” and “she was Polly at school”.
The novel tells the story of a 12-year-old girl groomed and sexually abused by a middle-aged man.
Other images show Epstein alongside women whose faces have been blacked out, including one photograph of him on a plane pointing out of a window.
Back and forth in DC
The partial release follows weeks of political whiplash in Washington and now lands short of what the law requires.
Congress rammed the law through with veto-proof majorities after a wave of public anger and pressure from survivors, mandating the full release of the records by today.
Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, said lawmakers needed to “stop talking and act.”
“My sister is not a political tool for you to use. These survivors are not political tools for you to use. These are real stories, real trauma,” he said.
“We will not let Virginia’s fight be in vain together. We will not let the predators win together.”
Another survivor, Danielle Bensky, said she was recruited by Epstein in 2004 and trapped in “a year-long cycle of abuse,” claiming Epstein threatened to “withhold care” for her mother, who had a brain tumour.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15653460/jeffrey-epstein-files-released-trump-elite-pals/