The Justice Department on Friday (January 30, 2026) released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

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They were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

After missing a December 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.

The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to 5.2 million, including duplicates, the department said.

The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.

Those records included previously released flight logs showing that Donald Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several photographs of former President Bill Clinton.

Neither Mr. Trump, a Republican, nor Mr. Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.

Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, but the US attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.

In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.

US prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.

Among the people she accused was Britain’s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal titles. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia last year at age 41.

U.S. lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday (November 18, 2025) for releasing government files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after President Donald Trump dropped his opposition to opening the books on a scandal that has roiled politics, law enforcement and the country’s elite.

The President had put allies in Congress under intense pressure not to make the material public, but the Republican leader threw in the towel over the weekend as it became clear that much of his party was poised to defy him.

The House of Representatives approved the Epstein Files Transparency Act in a near-unanimous vote compelling publication of unclassified documents detailing the investigation into the disgraced financier’s operations and jailhouse death, which was ruled a suicide.

Lawmakers say the public deserves answers in a case with over 1,000 alleged victims.

Mr. Trump says the files will expose powerful Democrats’ connections to Epstein, but the President himself faces uncomfortable scrutiny over his years-long friendship with the man alleged to have supplied underage girls to rich and influential men.

The bill now goes to the Senate. Killing the bill in the Senate after a lopsided House vote would be awkward to defend, and Mr. Trump has pledged not to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

But expectations of damning new revelations could prove premature.

The Justice Department has wide latitude to hold back any information if release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation” and Mr. Trump ordered officials in a widely criticised intervention last week to probe Epstein’s ties with high-profile Democrats.

The saga has exposed rare fissures in support for the Republican leader, who previously campaigned on releasing the files but changed course after taking office, accusing Democrats of pushing a “hoax.”

After multiple attempts by Republican leaders to block the vote, all Democrats and four Republicans signed a “discharge petition” — an extraordinary procedure forcing the bill to the House floor against the wishes of the leadership.

Relenting on his longstanding resistance, Mr. Trump said on social media late Sunday (November 16, 2025) that Republicans should vote to release the files “because we have nothing to hide.”

“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday (November 18, 2025) at an Oval Office event with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”

Long association

However, Mr. Trump had a well documented relationship with Epstein, who was famous for throwing parties and other networking opportunities for the rich and powerful.

The U-turn marks a rare occasion when a revolt from Mr. Trump’s allies has forced his hand, and Epstein survivors at a news conference ahead of the vote questioned the president’s motives.

“I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” said Haley Robson, who was recruited to massage Epstein when she was 16. “I am traumatized — I am not stupid.”

At the time of his death, Epstein was facing federal trial over an alleged sex trafficking operation said to have exploited underage girls and young women, following a 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution.

For years, Mr. Trump’s right-wing movement encouraged followers to believe that the government was covering up a major conspiracy.

But Mr. Trump’s Justice Department said in July officials had completed an “exhaustive review” of the case and had “no basis to revisit the disclosure” of any Epstein materials.

The White House escalated efforts last week to mothball the vote, with Mr. Trump and his allies making last-minute appeals to two of Republican signers of the discharge petition.

This caused an uproar in Mr. Trump’s base.

The rupture widened when Mr. Trump pulled his endorsement of top loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene in a stunning break that she said “has all come down to the Epstein files.”

“The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files? Or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” she said at the news conference.