The uproar escalated on Saturday when US media reported that at least 16 files from the tranche, which were published online, had disappeared from public webpages.
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The deleted files also included a photo of President Donald Trump.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) began releasing the funds on Friday to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November mandating the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite Trump’s efforts to keep them sealed for months.
It said it planned to release more records on a gradual basis, blaming the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information.
But the thousands of pages made public revealed little new information about Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years. He also omitted some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal DOJ memos on charging decisions.
Meanwhile, a 119-page document titled “Grand Jury-NY”, presumably one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to charges against Epstein in 2019, was completely blacked out.
Marina Lacerda, one of Epstein’s victims, reacted angrily to the large number of redacted and unredacted documents.
“We are all angry about this,” he told news outlet MS Now on Saturday. “This is another slap in the face. We expected much more.”
Lacerda, who said Epstein abused her when she was 14, was a key witness in the 2019 investigation that led to sex trafficking charges being filed against the late financier.
Epstein committed suicide in prison that same year, shortly after his arrest.
Lacerda told The New York Times in a separate interview that she felt disappointed.
“A lot of the photos are irrelevant,” he said.
Another survivor, Jess Michaels, told news outlet CNN that she spent hours searching the released files for her victim’s statement and records of her call to the FBI tipline, but found none.
“I couldn’t find any of them,” he said. “Is this the best thing the government can do? Even an act of Congress is not getting us justice.”
Marijke Chartouni, who said Epstein abused her when she was 20, condemned the lack of openness.
“If everything has been modified, where is the transparency?” he said in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.
Some MPs also expressed disappointment.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who helped push the legislative effort, accused the White House of failing to follow “both the spirit and the letter of the law that Donald Trump signed just 30 days ago” in a social media post on Friday.
That law required the government’s case file to be posted publicly by Friday, hindered only by legal and victim privacy concerns.
Meanwhile, 16 missing unexplained files have led to online speculation about what was removed and why the public was not informed, adding to the long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful people who surrounded him.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring Trump in a post on Twitter, writing: “What else is being hidden? We need transparency for the American public.”
“If they’re removing this, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” said senior Democrat Chuck Schumer. “This may be one of the largest cover-ups in American history.”
However, the Trump administration denied that it was not forthcoming with released materials. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a TV interview with ABC that there was no effort to “stop anything” to protect Trump.
The DOJ also released a statement on X late Saturday night. “The photos and other materials will continue to be reviewed and amended in an abundance of caution as additional information is received, consistent with the law,” it added.
Separately, celebrities appearing in photos made available as part of Friday’s release include former President Bill Clinton, the late news anchor Walter Cronkite, singers Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, British entrepreneur Richard Branson and the former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson.
There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey.
Many of the photos were undated and provided without context, and none of the people in them have been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is also seen in a photo lying on the laps of several women. The former Duke of York, who was stripped of his royal titles over his links to Epstein, has denied any wrongdoing.
Despite frequent inclusion in previous releases of Epstein-related documents, references to Trump himself were notably missing. Trump and Epstein were friends in the 1990s and early 2000s and had a falling out before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008.
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein’s crimes.
Amid the outrage, the DOJ tried to draw attention to Clinton, with two agency spokespeople posting photos on social media that they said showed her with Epstein victims.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Angel Urena, said in a statement that the White House was attempting to shield itself from the investigation by focusing on the former president.
“They can release grainy 20-year-old photos all they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” he wrote.
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