‘Who is he protecting?’ Handling of Trump material in Epstein files fuels cover-up claims

Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general and Donald Trump’s former lawyer, said it upfront.

“There’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents,” he told reporters on Friday, announcing the release of millions of new pages, images and videos from the so-called Epstein files. “And there’s nothing I can do about that.”

The biggest release of Epstein documents to date came six weeks after the Justice Department had blown through a deadline signed into law by Trump himself, which ordered that all material be shared with the public. The release on Friday marks the administration’s latest attempt to draw a line under the scandal that has dogged the president’s second term.

But the White House’s chaotic handling of the files and the scale of redactions in the latest tranche of documents has again only fuelled allegations of a brazen cover-up surrounding the network of powerful men in Epstein’s orbit, including Trump.

With each new release of lurid revelations, it remains striking that the paedophile financier united the elite worlds of politics, media, entertainment and even royalty, regardless of their political ideology, partisanship or public rhetoric.

Trump is named more than 3,000 times in the latest cache of material. One document in particular highlights why the White House’s inept handling of the material has only fed the conspiracy theories that surround the president’s relationship with the notorious sex offender.

The document, which includes a list of graphic but uncorroborated accusations made against Trump by several women and compiled by the Justice Department, was published and then deleted from the archive on Friday. It reappeared hours later, having already been spread online.

None of the allegations has been substantiated and Trump has denied any wrongdoing. Investigators appeared sceptical of some of the claims. One officer noted: “Some of these individuals are reporting second-hand information.” The Justice Department was quick to dismiss “untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponised against President Trump already”.

There will be further awkward questions for other men in and around the Trump administration. Hours after he was announced as Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, Wall Street financier Kevin Warsh was also named in the files, though the documents do not make clear if he knew Epstein personally and there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

More damaging was the revelation that Howard Lutnick, the billionaire businessman and Trump’s commerce secretary, appears to have planned a trip to Epstein’s island in 2012, years after he claimed he had severed ties with the financier. Lutnick told the New York Times on Friday that he had “spent zero time” with Epstein.

Elon Musk, who served in the Trump administration last year and remains close to the president, also had cordial ties with Epstein, the documents suggest. Emails between the men indicate Musk trying to arrange a visit to Epstein’s island, though the trip appears not to have taken place. Musk took to X to insist that he declined repeated invitations from Epstein.

At Friday’s briefing, Blanche confirmed that the DoJ has about 6m documents in total, but will withhold almost half to protect the victims and avoid disseminating child pornography.

Despite multiple reports that the DoJ and FBI have spent months combing the documents for mentions of Trump, Blanche said the DoJ had not sought to shield the president. “We comply with the act, and there is no ‘protect President Trump’. We didn’t protect or not protect anybody,” he said.

Critics said the pattern of redactions suggests an ongoing cover-up. FBI reports mapping out Epstein’s network of associates, employees and girlfriends were widely blacked out.

A group of Epstein survivors, including relatives of Virginia Giuffre, condemned the “outrageous” attempt to withhold millions of documents from the public and the botched release, which exposed the names of victims while concealing those of their abusers.

“This latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files is being sold as transparency, but what it actually does is expose survivors,” the group said. “Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected…This is a betrayal of the very people this process is supposed to serve.”

In a letter to Blanche, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie, the two congressmen who drove the Epstein bill through Congress, demanded access to the full unredacted files.

“We have seen a blanket approach to redactions in some areas, while in other cases, victim names were not redacted at all,” Khanna and Massie wrote. “Congress cannot properly assess the department’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record.”

The White House defence – that the allegations against Trump would have been used against him already if they were credible – has revived questions for Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland. Garland will be forever condemned in the eyes of many Democrats for his reluctance to prosecute Trump over the January 6 riot in 2021. Garland’s fateful hesitation enabled Trump to delay the case until he took back the White House at the 2024 election.

At his Senate confirmation hearing in 2021, Garland said the DoJ’s handling of the Epstein case during Trump’s first term had been “horrendous”. “He obviously should have been vigorously prosecuted earlier,” Garland added. “I don’t know why he wasn’t.” Again anxious to avoid any semblance of partisan bias, however, Garland appears to have steered clear of the Epstein files altogether once he took office. A subpoena for Garland to testify before Congress last year was withdrawn after he denied any knowledge of the documents, to the exasperation of senior Democrats.

Robert Garcia, the senior Democrat on the House oversight committee, who has overseen the release of documents from Epstein’s estate, said the “arrows continue to point back to the White House”, as the scandal unfolds.

“Why has Donald Trump been so obsessed with hiding the Epstein files? Who is he protecting? Why is he protecting them?” Garcia told the MS Now news channel. “These questions all need to be answered.”

Photographs courtesy of US Department of Justice/PA Wire