The Epstein files were meant to close the case – but questions still remain ...Middle East

No-one should say that there is “nothing” in the thousands of documents on Jeffrey Epstein released by the Department of Justice on Friday night.

Donald Trump’s DoJ was required by a newly-passed law to release absolutely everything it held on the notorious paedophile by that deadline, with redactions only to protect the identities of victims. Instead, it released thousands of documents, many heavily redacted, and an admission that it held many thousands more which it hadn’t yet had time to check, but will be released in the coming weeks.

What was released showed the grim reality of a child abuse and trafficking scheme operating on a truly industrial scale. Epstein ordered underage girls like a normal person orders a takeaway, complaining with chilling casualness when he didn’t get what he ordered – if a girl was over 18, or had dark skin.

One victim recounts how she saw Epstein more than 100 times before her 16th birthday. A post-it note written for Epstein reveals one of his victims would be unable to attend him at 7pm that day because she had soccer practice. Receipts show Epstein’s purchase of sex toys, which witness testimony then shows he used on children. A list of “masseuses” – Epstein’s euphemism for his trafficked girls – runs to more than 250 (redacted) names.

Epstein appears to have almost obsessively documented his crimes, especially through his fondness for collecting photographs of his victims, alongside photo sheets of his friends and his foreign trips. A green FBI sheet marked “CSAM not scanned” – short for “Child Sexual Abuse Material not scanned” – becomes all too familiar as you scroll through the release: 51 photos not scanned, then 81, then 100.

The documents include a large collection of photos from an overseas trip in which Epstein accompanied Bill Clinton and includes a photo of the former president in a hot tub with an unidentified woman. There is a photograph showing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor straddling five unidentified women, with Ghislaine Maxwell hovering nearby. Epstein is pictured with Michael Jackson.

All of those were known associates of Epstein, though, and the documents reveal little to nothing that is new about them – although being included in the files does not indicate wrongdoing. What is missing entirely from this release is answers to any of the major questions hovering over the Epstein scandal – to what extent did Epstein procure girls for his ‘friends’? What did they know? Who was or wasn’t involved? Who did or didn’t visit his island?

The man absent from the release, was Donald Trump, who was described by Epstein as his “best friend” for more than a decade.

There are well-documented incidents of the two men together with girls and of girls being procured for Epstein via Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate (there are several photos of the two at various events in the 1990s, footage of them at a party at Mar-a-Lago in 1992, of Trump’s wedding in 1993 and showing the current president surrounded by women). Trump fell out with Epstein in the early 2000s after the convicted paedophile, whom he termed a “creep”, “stole” women who worked at his Mar-a-Lago beach spa.

There is a photo of Epstein brandishing a large novelty cheque for $22,500, signed by Trump, but this has been previously released by Congress.

Inevitably, the White House and DoJ are already being accused of a cover-up as the first tranche of documents includes photos of Clinton, but almost nothing new on Donald Trump.

If this was supposed to be a plausible release, they have mishandled it. Even what has been released has been put out in ways that seem to violate the law’s requirement. Some documents are simply 100 pages or more of totally blacked out content. The DoJ’s search tool for the release is so bad that it would deliver zero results if you simply typed “Epstein” in the search box, let alone “Trump”.

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This release of the Epstein Files contains much to turn the stomach and make the skin crawl, but it contains nothing in the way of answers. The White House promised to release the Epstein Files in full, and this is very obviously not that.

While it may not answer any of the questions on Epstein, these documents make them all the more urgent – by documenting the reality of the horrors Epstein inflicted on hundreds of girls, and the global nature of his child procurement network, they make his crimes even harder to ignore.

Trump and his team might have hoped that dumping these documents on the Friday before Christmas would take the heat out of this story. Instead, it has poured petrol onto the flames – and they might consume them all yet.

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