The justice department late on Monday released nearly 30,000 more pages of files related to the investigations of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, disclosing records that contained hundreds of references to President Donald Trump.
A search by The New York Times suggests that most of the references were mentions in news reports or other material that had been included in the files, but some were focused on the President, who was once a friend of Epstein’s. That included an email from an unidentified federal prosecutor saying that Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet "many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)".
The release contained a wide mix of documents, including blacked-out pages of tax returns for Ghislaine Maxwell, a confidante of Epstein’s, tips to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and internal communications at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, the Manhattan jail where Epstein died. Times reporters are sifting through the material and providing updates and analysis of the records, which the administration has begun to release after Congress passed a law requiring their disclosure.
The email from the unidentified Manhattan federal prosecutor, dated January 2020, said he or she wanted to make the recipient aware that flight logs showed Trump had been a more frequent passenger on Epstein’s private jet than had been previously known. The email went on to say that Trump was a passenger on Epstein’s plane on eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including two with possible witnesses in the criminal case against Maxwell. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges in Manhattan federal court in 2021.
Passengers on another flight included only Epstein, Trump and a 20-year-old, the email said. On other flights, Trump flew with Marla Maples, his former wife; his daughter Tiffany; and his son Eric.
The names of the potential witnesses, as well as the email’s sender and recipient, were redacted. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein or Maxwell. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In releasing a batch of documents late on Monday, the justice department sounded a cautionary note, saying that some of the material contained false accusations without specifying which claims it believed to be false or which it believed to be true.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the department said in a statement on social media.
New York Times News Service