Like Friday’s release, the new installment includes hundreds of photographs, along with various court records related to Epstein and his associates. The first of the additional datasets, Data Set 5, contains images of hard drives and physical folders, as well as chain-of-custody forms. Data Set 6 appears to be mostly grand jury material from the Southern District of New York cases against Epstein and his conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Data Set 7 includes more grand jury materials from those cases, as well as materials from a separate 2007 Florida grand jury.
Data Set 7 also includes an out-of-order transcript from 2019 between R. Alexander Acosta and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility. According to the transcript, OPR was investigating whether lawyers with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida committed professional misconduct by entering into a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, who was being investigated by state law enforcement on sexual battery allegations. Acosta was head of the office when the agreement was signed.
Before the deadline to release the materials, the DOJ made three separate requests to unseal the grand jury materials. Those requests were granted earlier this month.
The initial release of the Epstein files met with opposition, particularly from Epstein’s victims and Democratic lawmakers. “The public received a fraction of the files, and what we received was filled with unusual and extreme redactions without any explanation,” wrote a group of 19 women who survived Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse in a statement posted on social media. Senator Chuck Schumer said Monday he will force a vote that would allow the Senate to sue the Trump administration for the full release of the Epstein files.
Along with the release of the new batch of files over the weekend, the Justice Department also removed at least 16 files from its initial offering, including a photo that depicted Donald Trump. The DOJ later reinstated that photo, and said in a statement on X that it was initially flagged “for possible further action to protect the victims.” The post said that “After review, it was determined that there was no evidence that the photo depicted any Epstein victims, and it has been reposted without any changes or modifications.”
The Justice Department acknowledged in a fact sheet on Sunday that it had “hundreds of thousands of pages of material to release”, claiming it had more than 200 lawyers reviewing the files ahead of release.
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