Massive trove of Epstein files released by DOJ, including 3 million documents and photos

The Justice Department released more Epstein-related records late Friday evening, after publishing a massive trove earlier on Friday.

The new tranche — known as Data Set 12 — includes just over 150 documents, most of which are a few pages long. Many of the records appear to be emails.

The two lead sponsors on the legislation that forced the Justice Department to release Epstein-related records are now asking the department for permission to look at some of the files without redactions.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche asking for a meeting to view the unredacted versions of several documents, including emails from Epstein's accounts, victim interview statements and a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum prepared by federal prosecutors in Florida.

"We have seen a blanket approach to redactions in some areas, while in other cases, victim names were not redacted at all. Congress cannot properly assess the Department's handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record," they wrote.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act allows the Justice Department to redact files in a handful of cases, including to take out victims' personal information. Blanche said in a press conference earlier Friday that members of Congress can arrange with the department to view unredacted files.

Among the documents released Friday was a 56-page draft indictment prepared by federal prosecutors in Florida in the mid-2000s, which sought to charge Epstein with dozens of counts of sex trafficking, enticement of a minor, conspiracy and other crimes. That case was never tried.

The potential defendants were Epstein and three of his personal assistants, whose names are redacted. There are dozens of allegations connecting underage girls to Epstein from 2001 to 2005.

It laid out a total of 30 criminal counts against Epstein, including a conspiracy charge that accused Epstein's assistants of seeking to "arrange appointments for minor females to travel to [Epstein's house in Florida] to allow Defendant JEFFREY EPSTEIN to engage in lewd conduct with them." The assistants and Epstein would then pay the victims to satisfy his "prurient interests," and in some cases, would pay the victims in exchange for recruiting other minors, the indictment said.

It also proposed charging Epstein with one count of conspiracy to travel, 14 counts of enticement of a minor, four counts of travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct and 10 counts of sex trafficking. 

Two other counts — for sex trafficking and facilitation of unlawful travel — did not include Epstein, meaning the draft indictment totaled 32 criminal counts.

It's not clear whether a grand jury was asked to vote on the charges.

A separate 60-count draft indictment was also drafted by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida in 2007, according to an internal review by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility from 2020. The phrase "old draft" is scrawled at the top of the 32-count indictment.

But Epstein was never charged by federal prosecutors in Florida. Instead, the office — led by U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta — negotiated a deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges in exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of prostitution in Florida state court. That deal was highly controversial, with the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility finding Acosta exercised "poor judgment."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his family spent time on Epstein's island, Little Saint James in 2012, emails show.

Lutnick's wife, Allison, planned a visit with their four children and another family around the end of the year and emailed with Lesley Groff, Epstein's then assistant, to coordinate their travel. 

Howard Lutnick was invited for lunch with Epstein on his island, and that appears to have taken place. On Dec. 24, 2012, a person whose name was redacted wrote to Lutnick on behalf of Epstein to tell him "it was nice seeing you."

But Lutnick had claimed in an interview last October with the New York Post that he and his wife had cut ties with Epstein in 2005, after taking a tour of his New York townhouse. They had moved in next door to Epstein.

Lutnick told the New York Post that Epstein had shown them his massage room and commented on the massages he received there. Lutnick said he and his wife quickly left, "and in the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again."

A Commerce Department spokesperson, in a statement to CBS News, said that Lutnick "had limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing."  

Emails from November and December 2018 indicate Steve Bannon and his son, Sean Bannon, received Hermes Apple watches, $1,499 at the time, from Epstein. They were identical models — "44 mm, space gray, stainless steel case, space black," — the email said. 

Lesley Groff, who was Epstein's assistant, wrote, "Jeffrey will give to Steve when he sees him next." In January 2019, there was another email from a redacted name sent to Epstein that read, "Steve has been given his Apple Watch!"

Earlier Epstein file releases revealed Bannon and Epstein exchanged hundreds of texts, and Bannon was a key player in Epstein's longshot effort to rehabilitate his reputation. Bannon filmed hours of interviews with Epstein as part of a planned documentary, saying in a 2018 text, "I'd like to do a documentary on the real story." Epstein answered, "yes, great idea." A source who was close to Epstein told CBS News he planned a public relations campaign aimed at portraying himself in a redemptive light.

In an email exchange between New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch and Jeffrey Epstein, the two men discussed multiple women, and Epstein sent details about their lives to the film producer-turned-NFL owner.

In one email from 2013, Tisch asked for details about a "Ukrainian Girl" who had lunch with him after meeting at Epstein's house. He called her a "very sweet girl."

Epstein replied that the woman had "a 10 ass" and is a "character," adding he would get "all info" on her. 

Tisch responded that he was "curious to know about," the woman, and asked Epstein if she is a "pro or civilian?" prompting Epstein to reply that he doesn't "like records of these conversations."

Regarding a different woman, Tisch asked Epstein, "Is she fun?"

Epstein replied that the woman is "a civilian, but russian, and rarely tells the full truth, but fun." 

In a separate email, after it appears Tisch met with a woman, Epstein told Tisch that a "report" was "just in" from their encounter, and he told the Giants owner that "you did very well… she is a little freaked by the age difference but go slow…"

In another email from the same year, Tisch appeared to be emailing with a woman that Epstein had introduced him to, writing to her, "Jeffrey Epstein is very excited about you and I meeting each other… I like that idea… do you?"

Epstein then appeared to give him tips about the woman's life, suggesting she was still in college and could not travel during the week to meet Tisch. 

"Never heard back from her," Tisch wrote to Epstein in a reply. "Oh well…"

Other emails show Tisch inviting Epstein to a Giants football game and Epstein inviting Tisch to his private island.

Tisch said in a statement to CBS News: "We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments. I did not take him up on any of his invitations and never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with."

CBS News has reached out to the NFL and the Giants for comment.

Two emails Jeffrey Epstein sent to himself on July 18, 2013, contain unverified allegations that Bill Gates had extramarital "sex with Russian girls" that resulted in a sexually transmitted infection requiring antibiotics. 

In one email, Epstein claimed Gates also sought to "surreptitiously give" the antibiotics to Melinda Gates. 

In another, which Epstein drafted as a resignation letter from the perspective of someone named "Boris," he said, "I have been asked and wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and have been repeatedly asked to do thing (sic) that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal...From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trusts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall fro (sic) bridge touramnts (sic), as I am a medial (sic) doctor, but have no presriptions (sic) writing ability."

The emails appear to have been written by Epstein on behalf of an aggrieved employee of Bill Gates who was resigning. The The Daily Mail and other outlets have suggested Epstein may have been drafting a resignation letter for Boris Nikolic, a physician and a former employee of Bill Gates. 

A spokesperson for Bill Gates told CBS News, "These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false. The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein's frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame." 

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2023 that Epstein tried to threaten Gates after discovering he had an affair with a Russian bridge player named Mila Antonova, whom Gates had met in 2010. Neither Gates nor Antonova have confirmed the affair. 

Kathryn Ruemmler, who was White House counsel under former President Obama from 2011 to 2014, said in a December 2015 email that she adores Epstein. 

"I adore him. It's like having another older brother!" Ruemmler said to a redacted recipient, according to the emails released by the Justice Department. Ruemmler made the comment after Epstein offered to buy her a first-class ticket to Europe. 

Ruemmler also served as associate White House counsel to former President Bill Clinton. She is now the chief legal officer and general counsel at Goldman Sachs. 

In 2023, she told the Wall Street Journal, "I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein."

Emails exchanged between Elon Musk and Epstein indicate they sometimes spent time around the holidays together in the Caribbean, and at least once on Epstein's island. 

In a Nov. 25, 2012 email, Epstein asked Musk how many people he would be bringing for the helicopter ride to the island. Musk responded, "Probably just Talulah and me." Talulah Riley was Musk's wife at the time. Musk then asked, "What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?"

On Christmas Day, he sent another note, again asking about parties: "Do you have any parties planned? I've been working to the edge of sanity this year, and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St. Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I'm looking for."

CBS News has asked Musk for comment. 

The next year, in a November 2013 email, Epstein asked Musk if he would come to the Caribbean for Christmas. He said Woody Allen was with him and that Musk "might enjoy" the trip. 

"Yes," Musk responded.

Although CBS News has not independently verified that Musk attended, the following year, in a September 2014 email, Epstein mentioned he had spoken with LinkedIn founder and tech investor Reid Hoffman and asked Musk if he would join for Christmas "again" in St. Barts.

"Don't know," Musk responded. 

At the end of October, Lesley Groff sent a schedule reminder to Epstein that noted Musk " is to go to the island on Dec. 6th," although a subsequent email on Dec. 5, 2014, had a schedule note saying, "Reminder: Elon Musk to island Dec. 6 (is this still happening?)"

In a May 2015 text message exchange, Epstein asks filmmaker Woody Allen if he wants to have a "day museum White House trip" the next week. That would have been when former President Barack Obama was president. 

Allen replied, "With my rap sheet I'll never get past security."

It's unclear if they were referring to visiting someone at the White House or simply a tourist trip. Another person appears to be included in the text exchange, but the name is redacted. 

Allen has not been charged with any crimes, and he has denied accusations by Mia Farrow that he molested their adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. 

A message sent Sept. 28, 2012, asks "what does JE think of going to Mar-a-Lago after xmas instead of his island?"

The names of the sender and the recipient are redacted. It's unclear whether there was any response. 

Mr. Trump has acknowledged that he and Epstein were friends for years but said they had a falling out around 2004, years before Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida and more than a decade before he was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges.

The Justice Department release includes a diagram of Epstein's inner circle. It shows pictures of Maxwell, suspected co-conspirator Jean Luc Brunel, suspected co-conspirator Leslie Groff, accountant Henry Bellar and other associates. Other suspected co-conspirators, recruiters, former pilots and employees are listed with some of their names redacted. 

The Justice Department said in a press release about the latest publication of Epstein-related documents that some of the material contains untrue information about Mr. Trump.

"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," the department said, referencing the Epstein Files Transparency 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."

The Justice Department said the records came from five primary sources, including cases against Epstein and Maxwell, a Florida case investigating one of Epstein's former butlers, multiple FBI probes and an investigation into Epstein's death conducted by the Justice Department's internal watchdog.

It said "notable individuals and politicians were not redacted in the release of any files."

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also sent a six-page letter to Congress, dated Friday, informing lawmakers that the production "marks the Department's compliance with its production under the act."

"Today's release marks the end of a comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the Act," they wrote. "The Department has engaged in an unprecedented and extensive effort to do so."

Among the material made public Friday is a two-page document with booking information for Maxwell that includes her mugshot.

Maxwell was indicted on sex-trafficking charges and arrested on July 2, 2020. The document, which appears to be from a Joint Automated Booking System, includes Maxwell's biographical information.

In an October 2009 email to Epstein from Peggy Siegal, a publicist and New York socialite, said she just left Ghislaine Maxwell's house, where an after-party for an unnamed film was being held.

"Bill Clinton and Jeff Bezos were there," she wrote. 

Epstein sat for a deposition in 2016 as part of Virginia Giuffre's defamation suit against Ghislaine Maxwell. He was asked several questions about Bill Clinton, and he responded "fifth" — to signify that he was invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — to each question about the former president. Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case.

Questions included:

• "Isn't it true that in the time period 2000 to 2001, you were close friends with Bill Clinton?"
• "Bill Clinton flew on your jet a number of times in 2002, right?"
• "When Bill Clinton came to your island, he was accompanied by two young women who were approximately 18 years old, true?"

California Congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the Trump administration is breaking the law by withholding millions of pages related to the federal probe into Epstein.

"Donald Trump and his Department Justice have now made it clear that they intend to withhold roughly 50% of the Epstein files, while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning," he said in a statement. "The Oversight Committee subpoena directs Pam Bondi to release all the files to the committee, while protecting survivors. They are in violation of the law."

Garcia said House investigators will review the latest release of records but will continue their investigation into Epstein and the government's handling of his case. 

"We are demanding the names of Epstein's co-conspirators and the men and pedophiles who abused women and girls," he said.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, questioned the Justice Department's decision to release roughly 3.5 million pages of documents after identifying more than 6 million that may have been covered by the law.

"The DOJ said it identified over 6 million potentially responsive pages but is releasing only about 3.5 million after review and redactions. This raises questions as to why the rest are being withheld," he said in a statement.

Khanna said he will be reviewing the newly available documents to see if they include records that he has been pushing to be made public, such as FBI forms memorializing victim interview statements, a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum that was prepared during a federal investigation into Epstein in 2007, and emails and files from his computers.

"Failing to release these files only shields the powerful individuals who were involved and hurts the public's trust in our institutions," Khanna said in a statement.

Blanche said the Justice Department and reviewers of the Epstein records in no way tried to protect President Trump. 

"I hope that the work that the men and women within this department have done over the past two months hopefully is able to bring closure," Blanche said. "I think that what we told our reviewers is that that was the goal. There's this mantra out there that, 'Oh, you know, the Department of Justice is supposed to protect Donald J. Trump,' and that's what we were telling — that's not true. That was never the case."

"We are always concerned about the victims," Blanche continued. "When we said that we were not legally allowed to release documents, that's a fact. That was true, it remains true today, and then with the act's passage, we are now able and directed to release documents, which is what we are doing."

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer in a Jan. 15 letter that compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act is a "substantial undertaking" because many of the documents required a "manual review" to ensure information identifying victims was redacted.

"To date, the Department has employed over five hundred reviewers to review and redact millions of pages of materials from the investigations into Epstein and his convicted coconspirator, Maxwell," Justice Department leaders wrote.

Blanche said federal authorities redacted every image or video of every woman depicted in the records they're releasing, except for Ghislaine Maxwell. They also redacted images of exploited minors. 

No images of men were redacted, Blanche said, unless it was impossible to redact the image of the woman without also redacting the man.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Friday the Justice Department is releasing more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images and videos related to its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Blanche said it appears that Epstein took some of the photos, though some were taken by others. He said the images and videos made public include "significant redactions" to protect survivors of Epstein's crimes.

The deputy attorney general said the federal authorities identified more than 6 million pages as being potentially responsive to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed late last year. He said more than 500 lawyers and other combed through the records over nights, holidays and weekends. 

In another letter to Berman and Engelmayer dated Jan. 27, Bondi and Blanche said they expected the Justice Department to make public "substantially all" of the records related to its investigation into Epstein "in the near term."

The two Justice Department leaders said "hundreds" of department employees were working to finish the review of Epstein records.

The Justice Department said on Dec. 24 that "over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case" had been uncovered by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI, adding that the process of releasing the files may take "a few more weeks."

SDNY prosecutors filed federal sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019 and he was awaiting trial in that case when he died in jail. The office also prosecuted his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Read more here.

The Justice Department published the first batch of files on Dec. 19, which consisted of five data sets containing thousands of photos of what appeared to be Epstein's properties in Manhattan and the Virgin Islands, along with photos of Epstein's travels — including some images of prominent figures, including former President Bill Clinton, President Trump, Mick Jagger, Woody Allen, Larry Summers and others. They have not been accused of wrongdoing. 

The release also included PDF files of call logs, phone records, handwritten notes and police files. 

The next day, another batch of documents was released, featuring grand jury presentations, interview transcripts, court records and an internal Justice Department transcript of an interview with the U.S. attorney involved in an earlier federal investigation into Epstein in the mid-2000s.

Some files were heavily redacted, drawing criticism from lawmakers who pushed for the release.

Then on Dec. 23, the Justice Department released a massive tranche of more than 11,000 files, totaling nearly 30,000 pages of photos, court records, emails, news clippings, videos and other records. Many of the files included mentions of Mr. Trump, though the Justice Department said some of the documents contained "untrue and sensationalist claims" about the president. The president has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Thousands of pages of materials from Epstein's estates and other sources had already been made public prior to the Justice Department's action.

The Justice Department's release of the Epstein files comes after interest swelled earlier this year upon the release of an internal DOJ review, which found no "client list" among the evidence collected by investigators, despite earlier claims by the attorney general.

Following months of pressure from lawmakers, constituents and survivors, an effort to force a vote to compel the Justice Department to release the files gained enough support in the House in November. Lawmakers quickly approved the legislation, and Mr. Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law on Nov. 19, giving the Justice Department 30 days to release the files. 

Though it faced a Dec. 19 deadline to release all the files, the Justice Department said it will release the files on a rolling basis due to the volume, citing the time it takes to make redactions to protect the survivors' privacy.