Democrats and Republicans threaten to impeach Pam Bondi over limited file release
A new photo showed then-Prince Andrew, dressed in a tuxedo, lying on the laps of five women while Maxwell stood behind them. Musicians Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger, as well as businessmen Richard Branson and Bill Gates, also took photos with Epstein.
Sexual themes were common. One photo showed Epstein holding a cake shaped like a woman’s breast, while other files contained invoices for sex toys and erotic books.
Jeffrey Epstein holds a cake shaped like a woman’s breast.Credit: access point
Former president Bill Clinton appeared in several dossiers, including a topless photo of himself in a jacuzzi with a woman whose face had been corrected. “Dear Democrat President, the black box was added to protect the victim,” Justice Department spokesman Gates McGavick said in a statement to X.
Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña distanced her boss from the saga. “The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months to release them late Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about protecting themselves from what happens next or what they’ll try to hide forever,” he said.
Trump was rarely featured in the files released Saturday, despite his friendship with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump said the two had drifted apart over the decade and that he had always denied any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.
The president declined to comment on the Epstein matter on Friday US time and did not mention it when he spoke at a rally in North Carolina on Friday night. He then flew to Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for Christmas vacation, no questions asked.
Bill Clinton is seen in a jacuzzi with an unidentified woman.Credit: US Department of Justice
The heavily redacted files released Saturday included a 100-page document that was completely blacked out and a 119-page grand jury transcript that was also completely redacted. Numerous other photographs and written records were also redacted.
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie, who forced the release of the files in Congress, said that they had prepared articles of impeachment and humiliation in nature against Bondi, but had not decided whether to act on them.
“The most important documents are missing,” Khanna told CNN, referring to the 60-page indictment that preceded Epstein’s 2008 plea deal and a related 82-page internal memo that lawyers previously said was on file.
“We have not seen the draft indictment charging other wealthy and powerful men who were on Epstein’s rape island and who monitored or participated in the abuse of young girls,” Khanna said.
Donald Trump leaves the White House for a rally in North Carolina on Friday before heading to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Credit: access point
Massie said that statement did not meet the letter or spirit of the law and that it would be open to a future Justice Department to prosecute Bondi and others.
Earlier, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said he expected hundreds of thousands of files would be made public on Saturday, but several hundred thousand more would be released in the next two weeks.
Part of the challenge, he said, is protecting the identities of the victims. The Epstein Files Transparency Act would allow for the redaction of personal information as well as any material that would compromise an ongoing investigation.
The partial disclosure came after months of resistance from Trump, who viewed continued public attention on Epstein’s connections to powerful figures, especially Trump himself, as a distraction and a “deception by the Democrats.”
One of the notebook pages mocking a young girl in the published files.Credit: US Department of Justice
But Epstein’s victims say making the files public is necessary to ensure justice and potentially uncover new conspirators. Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges; Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Marina Lacerda told the BBC that she and her fellow Epstein survivors were disappointed by the material published. “We think there are a lot of files that don’t have much information in them,” he said. “We can see that some of these fixes were clearly made to protect the rich, the wealthy, the powerful.”
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Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also moved to release documents related to the FBI investigation into Thomas Matthew Crooks, the alleged Trump assassin whose bullet grazed Trump’s ear during a rally in Pennsylvania in 2024.
“President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in American history,” Bondi said in a post.
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