The Justice Department has said it will release nearly 50,000 documents related to the case of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by the end of Friday.
A department spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday evening that “47,635 files were offline for further review and should be ready for re-production by the end of the week.”
The documents reportedly include unverified allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against both Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, and President Trump — who enjoyed a friendship with the financier in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Trump has insisted that the released files exonerate him of any legal, moral or ethical wrongdoing in regard to Epstein, with whom he reportedly fell out around 2004 amid a property dispute.
According to the Journal, the files to be made public include summaries of three interviews a woman gave FBI agents following Epstein’s arrest in July 2019.
The woman claimed to have been abused by Epstein as a minor during the mid-1980s, but was found to be ineligible for compensation that was paid out to more than 130 other victims.
The Justice Department previously released a recap of the woman’s allegations as well as a summary — known in bureau parlance as a “Form 302” — from a fourth interview in which she alleged Epstein abused her in South Carolina.
Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed by Trump in November, the DOJ is obligated to release all its files related to the Epstein case, with redactions only made to protect victims or ongoing investigations.
The law also allows for the holding back of duplicate files, materials that jeopardize attorney-client privilege or documents that are unrelated to the cases against Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Past releases of the files have included wild allegations against Trump and other public figures, with the DOJ merely cautioning in a Jan. 30 statement that “[s]ome of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.”
