No bombshells or client lists, but some celebrity cameos

The Justice Department released thousands of documents from its files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, but the massive release of documents was heavily redacted and incomplete. and shed little new light on his crimes.

It did, however, contain a few celebrity cameos.

Here’s a look at what’s — and what’s not — in the “Epstein Files” so far.

Many files had already been published

Many of the leaked documents were made public as part of various lawsuits and court filings, including the Palm Beach, Florida, police reports that led to the state’s initial criminal investigation in 2005. Some documents were also made public as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Epstein affair.

Among the released documents were already public documents relating to the criminal cases against Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, including documents relating to Maxwell’s appeal of his conviction and 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. It also includes various civil complaints filed against Epstein over the years.

But all this was not old news. One of the files released was Maria Farmer’s complaint to the FBI in 1996, alleging that Epstein stole photos she took of her 12- and 16-year-old sisters and sold them. She sued the federal government this year in federal court for alleged failure to protect her and other Epstein victims.

“I feel redeemed,” Farmer said in a statement Friday.

His legal team said in a press release that the document “proves that if the FBI had simply done its job in 1996, Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation could have been stopped from the start.”

Farmer’s trial is still ongoing and the government has yet to respond to his allegations.

Many documents are still missing

The Epstein Files Transparency Act gave the Attorney General 30 days to “make available to the public, in a searchable and downloadable format, all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice” involving Epstein, “including any investigations, prosecutions, or custody matters.”

That deadline passed Friday, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged that the release was missing several hundred thousand pages and that it could take “a few weeks” for the rest to be revealed.

He attributed the delay to the need to redact information about the victims. “What we’re doing is looking at every piece of paper that we’re going to produce, making sure that every victim – their name, their identity, their story – to the extent that they need to be protected, is completely protected,” he told Fox News.

The law’s co-author, Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said the department needed to give a detailed timeline on when those documents would be released, and also noted that some documents appeared overly redacted.

“Some of the documents I just scanned have very heavy redactions,” Khanna said, and under the law, “they owe Congress and the American public an explanation for each redaction.”

Khanna’s co-author, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said in a video released Thursday

Little mention of Trump in DOJ statement

President Donald Trump’s past friendship with Epstein is well known — and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, told Vanity Fair that he was included in the files — but there were only passing mentions of him in the documents released Friday.

Trump has said he fell out with Epstein even before facing criminal charges, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Wiles told Vanity Fair that Trump was in the files but “didn’t do anything horrible.” She said he and Epstein had been “young, single playboys together.”

In a statement following the DOJ’s release, the White House said: “The Trump administration is the most transparent in history. By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and recently calling for deeper investigations into Epstein’s Democratic friends, the Trump administration has done more for victims than Democrats ever have.”

Bill Clinton makes numerous appearances

Former President Bill Clinton, however, made numerous appearances in photographs released with the files. In one, he stands alongside Epstein as they smile while looking at something not shown in the photo. In another, he’s in a hot tub. In a third, he is photographed swimming in a pool with Maxwell.

In two others, Clinton is shown with his arm around a woman whose face is blackened, and in a third, he is shown sitting at a table with a woman sitting on his leg.

The photos are not dated and it is unclear where they were taken. Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane four times in 2002 and 2003 on behalf of his Clinton Foundation, according to her spokesperson, Angel Ureña.

Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, although the former president has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Nothing in the photos suggests wrongdoing.

Ureña said in an article on

Wiles told Vanity Fair that “the president was wrong” to suggest there was anything incriminating. about Clinton in the Epstein archives.

More celebrity sightings

Clinton was not the only famous person whose photo appeared in the files. Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger appeared with the former president in another photo, with a woman with a blackened face standing between them.

A representative for Jagger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In another photo, Epstein was photographed standing next to the late pop star Michael Jackson, in front of a painting depicting a naked woman reading on the beach.

Others showed actor Kevin Spacey standing with Epstein. None of the photos are dated, so it’s unclear when or where they came from. Spacey told journalist Piers Morgan last year that he had traveled on Epstein’s plane on a humanitarian mission with the Clinton Foundation, but that “he never spent time with him.”

A representative for Spacey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an article on

Nothing in the photos suggests wrongdoing on the part of any other character. In a letter to Congress Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the records “did not reveal credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent figures, nor did they uncover evidence that could form the basis of an investigation against unindicted third parties.”