What's revealed in the latest Epstein files release – and what's redacted

Amna Nawaz:

The Department of Justice released its latest and likely last major batch of files related to investigations into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This comes more than a month after the DOJ missed a deadline set by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. It includes more than three million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The DOJ says there are redactions, including the personally identifiable information of victims.

The department has not provided a full explanation of what's excluded. The deputy attorney general said the White House did not have oversight over the review or redactions.

Todd Blanche, U.S. Deputy Attorney General:

We complied with the statute, we complied with the act, and there is no -- we did not protect President Trump. We didn't protect or not protect anybody. There's a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents.

And there's -- it's not -- there's nothing I can do about that.

Amna Nawaz:

Our team has been going through that document dump today.

And "News Hour" justice correspondent Ali Rogin joins me now with what we know.

So, Ali, what did we learn today?

Ali Rogan:

Amna, this was a massive document dump, as you said, three million pages.

As you can imagine, our team is still sifting through them. Before today, for comparison, the DOJ had released about 500,000 pages. So this is orders of magnitude bigger. And the person making this announcement today is also notable. Todd Blanche, now deputy attorney general, he was President Trump's former personal attorney.

He was emphatic, though, that the White House had no involvement in any of the preparation of the documents. He also said that between this release and a forthcoming report to Congress, once that's out, the DOJ's obligations under this law that Congress passed, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, will come to an end.

Amna Nawaz:

So I know you're still going through the files, but what do we know about what is inside the files themselves so far?

Ali Rogin:

I think most notably what people are looking for is mentions of President Trump. And there are thousands of them in these documents. Many of them, we should note, are news clippings.

But there are some lists and summaries of unsubstantiated claims made against him from individuals alleging wrongdoing, including graphic depictions of alleged sexual abuse, including of underage girls. Some of those complaints date back to the '90s, others from more recently around when he was campaigning for president.

What we don't know, though, is whether any of these claims have been substantially investigated. But the Department of Justice says that they were required by law to release everything, including those documents that were fake or falsely submitted.

There's also a new diagram we saw today that shows basically an organization chart of Epstein's inner circle. Some employees were blacked out, but we see the connections between him and co-conspirators like Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as several attorneys and an accountant.

There's also what appears to be a new picture of a desk or a table filled with photos of Epstein, Maxwell, and public figures, including Trump, as well as one with Pope John Paul II. We have also seen in past releases some pages are entirely redacted and others are completely mundane things like schedule updates.

Amna, I also want to note that we have reached out to the White House for comment and they have provided none.

Amna Nawaz:

We should also note, I understand there are other members of the administration mentioned in some of these documents. What do we know?

Ali Rogan:

Yes, we already knew that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had a relationship with Epstein, which he claims had ended in the early aughts.

But new documents indicate that they made plans to meet for lunch in 2020 -- in 2012 on Epstein's private island in the Caribbean while Lutnick was also vacationing in the Caribbean elsewhere with his family. And it does seem in those documents like they followed up and had that lunch.

Amna Nawaz:

We should underscore here just being mentioned in the documents is no indication of any kind of wrongdoing.

But we should also double down on this idea the deadline to release those documents was more than a month ago. Why has it taken so long?

Ali Rogan:

It was indeed.

It was on December 19. The Department of Justice says they sent more than 500 lawyers to go through these documents and meticulously redact these things. In a letter today, Attorney General Pam Bondi said they'd identified more than six million pages that needed review, which resulted in the three million today.

They say they redacted personally identifiable information of victims and sexually explicit material. She also said that approximately 200,000 pages have been withheld or redacted because of various privileges, including attorney-client privilege, and that within 15 days they're going to give Congress a more detailed look at government officials and -- quote -- "politically exposed" persons in this document, although there's no definition of what politically exposed means.

Amna Nawaz:

Speaking of Congress, how is all this landing on Capitol Hill?

Ali Rogan:

Well, we heard today from one of the authors of the Epstein Files Act, Congressman Ro Khanna.

He says he has outstanding questions about why, by the DOJ's account, 2.5 million of these documents remain out of public view. He said he was looking for victim interview statements, many of which were included in today's tranche. He's also looking for additional documents from Epstein's computers.

But, of course, this massive tranche was just released today, so there could be more revelations in the hours and days to come.

Amna Nawaz:

Justice correspondent Ali Rogin, thank you very much.

Ali Rogan:

Thank you.