The Department of Justice failed to meet the statutory deadline to release the complete Jeffrey Epstein files, delivering instead a heavily redacted tranche of documents.

The release, mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed into law last month, was supposed to be a comprehensive disclosure of “all unclassified records” by Friday, December 19. Instead, the DOJ missed the deadline, releasing a limited batch of documents riddled with blacked-out pages, while other key evidence—including incriminating photos visible just hours earlier—reportedly vanished from the public database by Saturday morning.

The initial “dump” on Friday, December 19, consisted of approximately 4,000 files. On Saturday, December 20, the DOJ released three additional batches of documents.  This is a small fraction of the “several hundred thousand” pages the Department of Justice (DOJ) had stated were in its possession.

The majority of the released files were photographs (largely from FBI raids on Epstein’s properties), along with PDF documents of flight logs and court transcripts.

While the Trump administration has repeatedly promised “full transparency”, and independent analysis of the files released over the weekend identified over 550 pages that were completely covered in black ink, containing no visible text other than page numbers or headers.

By Saturday, approximately 15 photographs that had been accessible on the DOJ’s website during the initial Friday release had been removed.

Among the vanished items was a photograph of a side table in one of Epstein’s properties featuring a collection of framed pictures. Before it was scrubbed from the server, one frame showed Epstein posing with Donald Trump, Melania Trump, and Ghislaine Maxwell, and another showed Trump surrounded by women in swimsuits.

A Vanity Fair article released last week quotes Susie Wiles, one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, as saying Trump “was on [Epstein’s] plane … he’s on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever — I know it’s a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together.” During the time Trump and Epstein were friends or associates, they were between the ages of 40 and 60.

Wiles’ comment isn’t the first time Trump has been cited in the Epstein files. Multiple outlets, citing senior administration officials and a Wall Street Journal report, state that Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy informed President Donald Trump in May 2025 that his name appeared multiple times in the government’s Epstein files, along with many other high‑profile figures.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a co-author of the transparency legislation, accused the DOJ of grossly failing to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.

Rep. Thomas Massie used his X account to frame the Epstein files release as a constitutional and transparency crisis, not just a salacious document dump. In posts promoting and then reacting to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, he stressed that Congress explicitly barred the Justice Department from hiding records on the grounds of “embarrassment” or “reputational harm,” arguing that any broad redactions or missing materials would be a direct violation of the law’s text.

“A future DOJ could convict the current AG and others because the Epstein Files Transparency Act is not like a Congressional Subpoena which expires at the end of each Congress,” Massie wrote on X.

Despite the redactions, the documents released so far have confirmed the presence of several high-profile figures in Epstein’s orbit, though their inclusion does not inherently prove criminal wrongdoing. Names and details confirmed in the Friday and Saturday batches include:

• Bill Clinton: Appearing in multiple photos, including one with Ghislaine Maxwell at the Winston Churchill War Rooms and another showing him in a hot tub.
• Prince Andrew: Seen in a group photograph where other faces were heavily redacted.
• Celebrity Associates: New photos and contact logs confirmed Epstein’s access to stars like Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Phil Collins, Minnie Driver, and billionaire Richard Branson.
• Dr. Elie Wiesel: The late Nobel laureate was listed in Epstein’s contact book.

Many of the celebrity images in the Epstein files, including photos featuring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, were not actually new revelations but recycled material that had long been in the public domain. For example, an image showing Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross aboard a jet had previously circulated through Getty Images and coverage of a Democratic fundraiser years before its appearance in the DOJ’s Epstein evidence set. The Justice Department created the impression of explosive new disclosures while, in reality, some of the “celebrity” content simply documented that these preexisting images were among Epstein’s collected materials.