The US Justice Department released a new trove of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, bowing to pressure from lawmakers who forced their disclosure with a new law.
The release follows months of political wrangling and rebellion by some of President Donald Trump's staunchest supporters over his administration's reluctance to make public all records tied to probes into Epstein.
Reuters is in the process of reviewing the latest documents.
Trump had initially urged fellow Republicans in Congress to oppose the new law, warning that releasing potentially sensitive internal investigative records could set a dangerous precedent.
But many Trump voters accused his administration of covering up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscuring details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
Trump, who promised on the 2024 election campaign trail to declassify the government's Epstein files if elected, has been seeking to move beyond the affair so that he can concentrate on a more pressing concern for Americans - the cost of living - ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections.
Just 44% of American adults who identify as Republicans approve of Trump's handling of the Epstein issue, compared to his 82% overall approval rating among the group, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Epstein's ties to Trump have been in the spotlight since Democrats in the House of Representatives last month released thousands of emails including one in which Epstein wrote that Trump "knew about the girls" without clarifying what that meant.
House Republicans released more emails the same day, including one saying Trump visited Epstein's house many times but "never got a massage."
Two days after those disclosures, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate Epstein's connections to former Democratic President Bill Clinton and JPMorgan bank. The following week, despite White House pressure to delay the vote, US lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill forcing the release of the Justice Department records, which Trump then signed into law.
Trump has repeatedly denied knowing about Epstein's sex trafficking but has acknowledged that the two were friends until they had a falling out before Epstein's conviction in 2008.
Previous disclosures of Epstein records have revealed that even after his 2008 conviction he continued corresponding with high-profile figures, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Clinton's former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and Britain's former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal title over revelations about his links to Epstein.
Spokespeople and lawyers for Bannon, Thiel and Mountbatten-Windsor have not responded to Reuters requests for comment about their interactions with Epstein.
Summers stepped back from positions at Harvard University, OpenAI and other institutions and said he was deeply ashamed of his actions after documents released by House Democrats in November showed that Summers corresponded with Epstein up through 2019, even seeking relationship advice from him.
JPMorgan paid some of Epstein's victims $290 million in 2023 to settle claims that it had overlooked his sex trafficking. The bank kept Epstein on as a client for five years after he was convicted of soliciting a minor in 2008.
