October 2, 2026
NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier's sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with rich and powerful people.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department would be releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release in December.
Included in the batch were records concerning some of Epstein's famous associates, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew, as well as email correspondence between Epstein and Elon Musk and other prominent contacts from across the political spectrum.
The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Lawmakers complained when the Justice Department made only a limited release last month, but officials said more time was needed to review an additional trove of documents that was discovered and to scour the records to ensure no sensitive information about victims was inadvertently released.
“Today's release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.
State and federal investigations into the financier have long animated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists, and others who have suspected government cover-ups and clamored for a full accounting, demands that even Blanche acknowledged might not be satisfied by the latest release.
“There’s a hunger, or a thirst, for information that I don’t think will be satisfied by the review of these documents," he said.
After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needed to be redacted, or blacked out.
Among the materials withheld is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of potential victims of sex abuse. Women other than Maxwell were redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said.
The number of documents subject to review ballooned to roughly 6 million, including duplicates.
The latest batch of documents includes correspondence either with or about some of Epstein's friends.
Mountbatten-Windsor's name appears at least several hundred times in the documents, sometimes in news clippings, sometimes in Epstein’s private email correspondence, and in guest lists for dinners organized by Epstein. Some of the records also document an attempt by prosecutors in New York to get the former prince to agree to be interviewed as part of their Epstein sex trafficking probe.
The records also show that Musk, the billionaire Tesla founder, reached out to Epstein on at least two separate occasions to plan visits to the Caribbean island owned by Epstein.
Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures.
“Epstein tried to get me to go to his island, and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025 when House Democrats released an Epstein calendar with an entry mentioning a potential Musk visit to the island.
The documents also contain hundreds of friendly text messages between Epstein and Steve Bannon during President Donald Trump's first term.
Bannon, a conservative activist who served as Trump’s White House strategist earlier in the president’s first term, bantered over politics with the financier, discussed get-togethers with him over breakfast, lunch or dinner and, on March 29, 2019, asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome: “Is it possible to get your plane here to collect me?”
Epstein told him his pilot and crew “are doing their best” to arrange that flight, but if Bannon could find a charter flight instead, “I’m happy to pay.” Apparently in France at the time, Epstein followed up with a text saying: “My guys can pick you up. Come for dinner.” The exchange did not show how that played out.
On one occasion in December 2012, Epstein invited Howard Lutnick — now Trump's commerce secretary — to his private island in the Caribbean for lunch, documents released Friday show. Lutnick’s wife, Allison Lutnick, enthusiastically accepted the invitation and said they would arrive on a yacht with their children. On another occasion in 2011, the two men had drinks, according to a schedule shared with Epstein.
Lutnick has tried to distance himself from Epstein, saying in a 2025 interview that he cut ties decades ago and calling him “gross.” He didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, and court records. Many were either already public or heavily blacked out.
They included previously released flight logs showing Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling-out, and several photographs of Bill Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. Both have said they had no knowledge that he was abusing underage girls.
Epstein reportedly killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his Palm Beach home. The U.S. attorney's office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.
In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.
U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein's abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics, and others, all of whom denied her allegations.
Among those she accused was Britain's Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal titles amid the scandal. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.
Giuffre died by suicide last year at age 41.
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