The US justice department has released some of the so-called Epstein files with heavy redactions, as thousands more are expected – here's what we've learned so far
The redactions have been criticised by Democrats for violating the transparency law, but the justice department says it has "erred on the side of redacting to protect victims" – what's been withheld and why?
The files shed little light on Epstein's network but intensify scrutiny of the Trump administration's handling of the affair, writes North America correspondent Peter Bowes
Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Richard Branson are among the famous faces in the files – who has been pictured?
Being named or pictured in the files is not an indication of wrongdoing. Many of those identified in other releases have denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein
Epstein accuser Maria Farmer, whose 1996 complaint to the FBI is included in the files, tells the BBC: "I feel redeemed… I am shedding tears of joy, but also tears of sorrow for all the other victims"
Edited by Rorey Bosotti and Tinshui Yeung
It is just approaching mid-morning on the eastern coast of the US and as we continue to pore over the thousands of files relating to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – let's bring you up to date with the key developments in the last few hours:
We have a team that is currently combing through the latest files released by the DOJ and we’ll bring you any relevant material as it comes to light.
Framed photos in Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan home show his vast network with powerful people
As part of the partial release of documents in the Epstein files, several books have been either pictured, mentioned or scanned.
It is not yet clear if these books were owned by Epstein, where they have been photographed, or why they have been included in the release.
Among them is a guidebook called Massage For Dummies – which as been scanned and its contents included in the data set. It's also mentioned as one of the "gifts" Epstein gave to a "girl" whose name is redacted.
Elsewhere, three copies of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff, can be seen in a photo from the files.
A previous release of documents by US lawmakers appeared to indicate a correspondence between Wolff and the late convicted sex offender.
Responding to the release at the time, Wolff said: "Some of those emails are between Epstein and me, with Epstein discussing his relationship with Donald Trump. I have been trying to talk about this story for a very long time now."
Noor Nanji
Royal correspondent
A photo in the released files shows former prince Andrew lying across laps, as Ghislaine Maxwell is seen in the image standing behind them
As we've reported, a photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lying on the laps of women is among the thousands of Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice.
In the picture, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell hovers in the background smiling at the former prince. The photo appears to have been taken in the saloon room at Sandringham, the royal estate in Norfolk.
The emergence of the photo will add to scrutiny on Mountbatten-Windsor, after he was stripped of his remaining titles and honours over his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.
Two of the photos also show Andrew's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, in the company of women whose faces are covered by black squares.
BBC News has approached her representatives for comment.
Simply appearing in the photos or documents is not evidence of wrongdoing.
Sarah Ferguson is pictured in some of the photos
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says there has been "no effort" to redact President Donald Trump's name from the release of the Epstein files.
On Friday Blanche was asked, in an interview on ABC News, external, whether all documents mentioning Trump in the so-called Epstein files will be released in the coming weeks.
"Assuming it's consistent with the law, yes," Blanche said. "So there's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald J Trump or anybody else's name, Bill Clinton's name, Reid Hoffman's name.
"There's no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that and – and so – but again, we're not, we're not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein."
President Trump has certainly said from the beginning that he expects all files that can be released to be released and that's exactly what we're doing"
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
Earlier, we reported that Epstein allegedly introduced a 14-year-old girl to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, according to court documents which were released by the justice department on Friday.
During the alleged encounter in the 1990s Epstein elbowed Trump and “playfully asked him”, in reference to the girl, “This is a good one, right?”, the document says.
We now have a response from the White House regarding that court document.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, in a statement to the BBC, said the Trump administration was "the most transparent in history".
"By releasing thousands of pages of documents, co-operating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have’, she argued.
Trump has previously said he was a friend of Epstein's for years, but said they fell out in about 2004, years before Epstein was first arrested. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein,
The files contain a painting of Bill Clinton depicted wearing a blue dress. In the painting, the former president is shown with his legs over the arm of a chair, wearing red high heels.
The painting appears to be hung on the wall at a property associated with Epstein.
The image has been released before. Speaking to Artnet News in 2019, Australian-born painter Petrina Ryan‑Kleid explained that she painted the work, titled "Parsing Bill", when she was a student at the New York Academy of Art.
"It was just a silly school artwork that was supposed to show, pictorially, the messages we are bombarded with in regards to these presidents," she told the outlet. She also said it was a "complete surprise" to learn the artwork ended up in Epstein's home, telling Artnet it was sold at a fundraiser held by the school.
Ryan‑Kleid told the outlet that the blue dress is a reference to the dress worn by Monica Lewinsky. The dress was a key piece of evidence in Clinton's affair with his White House intern.
Virginia Giuffre's brother Sky Roberts tells Reuters he has "mixed feelings" following the partial release of the Epstein files. "What are we hiding here?" he asks.
As we've been reporting, the tranche of documents released yesterday is believed to represent just 1% of the files the Department of Justice holds on Epstein.
Giuffre's sister-in-law Amanda Roberts adds that "nothing the Department of Justice does comes as a surprise". She claims it has used the case as a "political toy".
"When there were rumours that potentially the president could be named in there, all of a sudden the story changed," she says. Then it was "hoax" and there was "nothing to see", she adds.
Trump is hardly mentioned in the files released yesterday and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
Despite these mixed emotions, Sky Roberts tells Reuters his sister would have felt an "overwhelming amount of joy for her survivor sisters" on Friday.
Some of the photos build on what we already knew, painting a picture of Epstein's jet-setting lifestyle. One shows him lying in a hammock on a beach in a tropical location.
The images reveal little else, but their inclusion in the tranche of documents released yesterday help to give a sense of scale – thousands of photos were amassed through the criminal investigations into the disgraced financier.
As we've been reporting, many of the files released are redacted.
CBS, the BBC's US partner, has found that at least 550 pages in the documents are completely covered by black rectangles.
These include a document we mentioned earlier, with 100 pages fully blacked out. It's unclear what's in the document or why it had to be fully redacted.
The justice department says the redactions are there to protect victims, but the Department of Justice has been criticised by Democrats for violating the transparency law that ordered documents to be released.
A redacted image released by the Department of Justice shows Epstein posing with an oversized cheque for $22,500
Among the documents is a picture showing Jeffrey Epstein holding an oversized cheque for $22,500.
The cheque is made to look like a payment from Donald Trump to Epstein, and includes a signature which appears to read DJ TRUMP in the bottom right corner.
It appears to be the same oversized cheque seen in another photo released in September, which was accompanied with a caption: "Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells 'fully depreciated' [name redacted] to Donald Trump for $22,500."
It's unclear whether Trump knew about the photo, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told reporters it is "absolutely not" the president's signature on the cheque.
Notably, the image released in this latest batch of documents is partially redacted, with a black rectangle placed over the left-hand side of the cheque. It appears to cover half of Epstein's name, and part of the cheque's value.
The image released by the House Oversight Committee in September which appears to show the same cheque does not redact it, but the face of someone posing with Epstein is concealed.
Unredacted image, as shared by the House Oversight Committee in September
Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing criticism for releasing only about 1% of the full volume of the Epstein files, despite a law requiring the full release.
But it’s not the first time the attorney general has been at the centre of controversy over the disgraced financier.
Bondi was Florida attorney general between 2011 and 2019. Questions were raised over whether she could have prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein for sex crimes during her time in office, as Epstein’s home was in the state.
Back in February, during an interview on Fox News, Bondi was asked about a purported Epstein client list. She replied: "It’s sitting on my desk right now to review."
But later, the Department of Justice said no such client list exists.
Bondi’s spokesperson said she was actually referring to the overall Epstein files.
In October, during a tense Senate hearing, Bondi was criticised for dodging questions about the Epstein files. Democrat Dick Durbin asked her if the justice department had flagged anything in the documents related to Donald Trump.
"I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, senator," Bondi replied.
Despite the criticism, Donald Trump has previously supported Bondi, writing in July: "Let Pam Bondi do her job," and urging his supporters not to "waste time and energy" on Epstein.
The second batch of files released on Friday includes a photo of Epstein with British entrepreneur Richard Branson. Two women are pictured behind them, but their faces have been redacted.
The location is unclear, but appears to be a tropical destination. Branson is wearing a t-shirt and swimming shorts, and there are straw-roofed buildings in the background.
The BBC has reached out to representatives for Branson for comment on the photo. As a reminder, being depicted in the documents does not imply wrongdoing.
Epstein was known for jet-setting with the rich and famous, and hosted many at his private island home in the US Virgin Islands.
Branson has come up previously in released documents. In an undated email, one accuser, Sarah Ransome, claimed to have seen sex tapes in Epstein's possession showing high-profile figures – including Branson.
The New Yorker magazine reported, external in 2019 that Ransome had admitted fabricating the claim but, in an interview in 2024, she said she only walked back on her claims because of threats to her family.
Referring to the New Yorker report, a spokesperson for Branson's Virgin Group said at the time: "We can confirm that Sarah Ransome's claims are baseless and unfounded."
Lord Peter Mandelson is among those pictured with Epstein – he has repeatedly said he regrets their relationship
We’re still searching through the released Epstein files, but here are the people we’ve seen in the pictures so far.
As a reminder, the pictures are released without details on time, place, or context, and being depicted in the images does not imply any wrongdoing.
Bill Clinton: The former US president appears in several pictures, including some in a swimming pool. He’s seen with people including Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of Epstein who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.
Mick Jagger: The Rolling Stones front man is pictured with Bill Clinton and a woman whose face is redacted.
Michael Jackson: He is also seen with Bill Clinton.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor: A photo seems to show the former prince lying across five people, whose faces are redacted, with Ghislaine Maxwell behind them.
Peter Mandelson: The former UK ambassador to the US is pictured with Epstein and a large birthday cake. Mandelson has repeatedly said he regrets his relationship with Epstein.
Ghislaine Maxwell: Maxwell appears in many pictures, including one where she’s standing in front of No 10 Downing Street.
We're going through data sets six and seven – the two latest batches released by the Department of Justice.
Just like many files released earlier, a lot of information is redacted.
Names are often redacted in the released documents
We've also found a document from an earlier release that's completely covered by black rectangles.
The extensive redactions have been criticised by Democrats for violating the transparency law, but the justice department says it has "erred on the side of redacting to protect victims".
One of the documents released is fully redacted – leaving nothing but black rectangles
The justice department has this morning released another batch of files – they include redacted court documents, testimonies from alleged victims and communications.
We are combing through them and will bring you more details when we have them.
"We're being told the redactions are largely to protect the victims," says Baroness Helena Kennedy, a human rights lawyer and Labour peer.
"Authorities always have a worry" about "exposing people to yet further denigration in the public mind", she tells the Today programme.
She acknowledges that many Epstein survivors seem "very keen" to have the material exposed, but she adds that they "might not be so keen if they knew exactly what was in there".
She thinks there should be someone working with the justice department "in the interests of the women". They could confirm consent on a more case-by-case basis, allowing certain materials to be made available without redaction, she suggests.
The files released so far by the US Department of Justice make up just about 1% of the reported 300 gigabytes of data from the Epstein investigation.
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who co-authored the bill that forced the publication of the files alongside Republican Representative Thomas Massie, tells CNN that he and Massie are drafting articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“We haven’t decided whether to move it forward yet, but we’re in the process of doing it,” he says.
Khanna adds that the issue for Bondi is now not about what Democrats think of the release, but that Trump supporters are also “upset with her”.
Khanna also says he was not asking the Department of Justice to release all the documents at once, but the amount released so far is not satisfactory.
“As long as they comply with the spirit of the law, I’m fine,” he says. “But this was in no way complying with the spirit of the law.”
Epstein survivor Liz Stein tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she thinks the Department for Justice is "really brazenly going against the Epstein Files Transparency Act" – the law which requires all documents to be released.
Survivors are really worried about the possibility of a "slow roll-out of incomplete information without any context".
The fight for justice has spanned decades, continents and political administrations, Stein says, adding: "We just want all of the evidence of these crimes out there".
While the release of documents comes at a "great cost" to victims, Stein is hoping it will be a "path to justice".
A little earlier this morning, we heard from Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat on House Oversight Committee. He tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I'm furious, I think they broke the law."
The Department of Justice was supposed to release all of the files on Friday, but only a "fraction" have been released – and they are "heavily redacted", Subramanyam says.
He adds that what has been released seems to "protect certain political people" while highlighting "certain political enemies". Most of the files are things we could already access publicly, he says, adding that a lot seems to be "missing".
"We're going to figure out what legal action we can take, and we're going to pursue that," he says. More files are still due to be released by the Department of Justice, but Subramanyam says "they may not do any more".
"We frankly don't trust them," he adds.
A photo in the released files appears to show former Prince Andrew lying across five people, with Ghislaine Maxwell standing behind them
It's been just over 11 hours since the US Department of Justice released a heavily redacted selection of some of the long-awaited Epstein files.
Since then, we've been combing through the 3,965 files which include photos of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's homes, his overseas travels and some famous faces.
Here's what we've learned:
We are continuing to look through the huge dataset and will bring you the key lines as we get them, stay with us.
Former US president Bill Clinton (R) and Mick Jagger pictured here with a woman whose face has been redacted
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