US justice department restores photo featuring Trump from Epstein files | Jeffrey Epstein

The U.S. Justice Department said Sunday it had restored an image it removed a day earlier from the public release of investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein after concluding that the photograph, which included a photo of Donald Trump, posed no risk of public exposure to the late convicted sex offender’s victims.

The Justice Department said the image was flagged by federal prosecutors in New York as likely to expose Epstein’s victims. Its unexplained removal on Saturday triggered a series of accusations from Democrats of obvious political interference in favor of the president, a former friend of Epstein.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Justice temporarily removed the image for further review,” the department said on

Earlier Sunday, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the deletion of the photos from Epstein’s files released Friday, including Trump’s, had “nothing to do” with the president — and argued the images would likely be reused once it was determined whether they needed to be redacted.

Blanche said the 16 referrals occurred at the request of victims’ advocacy groups. “We don’t have perfect information,” Blanche said Sunday on NBC News’ Meet the Press. “And so when victims’ rights groups tell us about this type of photography, we take it down and investigate.”

As Blanche says, an investigation into the photos is underway, and they “will come up,” the only question being “whether there will be any redactions.”

Victims’ rights advocate Gloria Allred told CNN on Saturday that “the system has failed survivors,” including the release of records that may have been “under-redacted.”

“I’ve seen a number of survivors’ names that should never have been published, because the goal is to protect survivors,” she told the outlet.

“The other concern I have is also with the images of some of the potential victims and survivors, because some of these images have not been redacted, should have been, and in some cases the images may be of undressed women. And that is completely unacceptable.”

In a letter to the Justice Department on Sunday, an Epstein victim who reported the sex offender to the FBI in 2009 said her name was wrongly exposed in Justice Department documents but that she had not been allowed to view his FBI file before then.

“The contradiction is extraordinary,” the victim wrote in a redacted letter released to »

Blanche and Allred’s comments come as the Trump administration faces criticism over its handling of Friday’s partial release when a full release was required by congressional law.

The release of Justice Department files related to Epstein — who was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor and died while awaiting sex trafficking charges — otherwise dominated Sunday talk shows. Democratic officials said the government failed to meet its legal obligation to fully disclose investigative documents.

“This initial release of documents is insufficient,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said on ABC’s This Week. “This is not what the law requires.”

Jeffries argued that legal statutes require the Justice Department to “provide a written explanation to Congress and the American people as to why they withheld certain documents” within 15 days.

The comments come after California Rep. Ro Khanna, Jeffries’ Democratic colleague, said there should be impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Pam Bondi for failing to fully disclose Epstein’s documents by Dec. 19. This date was set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act co-authored by Khanna.

On Sunday, Blanche argued that the government did not have time to examine all the files to make the redactions necessary to protect victims.

“It’s very simple and very clear,” Blanche said. “The law also requires us to protect victims. The reason we continue to review documents and continue our process is simply this: to protect victims.

“So the same people who are complaining about the lack of documents produced on Friday are the same people who apparently don’t want us to protect victims,” he added.

Images removed Saturday from the DoJ’s disclosures page included a photograph of Epstein’s office in his New York mansion in which two photographs of Trump were visible. Images have also been removed from downloadable folders.

“This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files which includes Donald Trump, has apparently now been removed from the DoJ release,” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee posted on X on Saturday.

“Pam Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public,” they added.

“This is a White House cover-up,” Democratic committee members said in a later post.

In a statement, the Justice Department said: “Photos and other documents will continue to be reviewed and redacted as required by law with an abundance of caution as we receive additional information. »

Criticism of the file modification speaks to the highly political nature of the congressionally ordered document dump, with Democrats saying the files released so far have been heavily redacted and cherry-picked to portray Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, in a bad light.

Republican members of the committee responded, saying that earlier Democratic-selected releases “repeatedly released hand-picked photoshopped photos in an attempt to score political points and create a hoax against President Trump. They are grabbing headlines at the expense of victims. They can NEVER be trusted to conduct serious investigations.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told NBC that if there were any unanswered questions about Clinton’s relationship with Epstein, “he should answer them, and I think he will.”

Kaine added: “Let’s put all the facts and all the elements on the table, and then people can make their own judgment about anyone connected to this horrible, horrible case. »

Arguments over politically inspired redactions, deletions and edits put Clinton back in the scandal, after photos of the former president lounging in a hot tub with Ghislaine Maxwell and what appeared to be a young woman were included in the release.

“It’s obvious what the Republicans in the White House, the Justice Department and their desperate cronies in Congress are doing,” a Clinton spokesperson said. “It’s not obvious what they’re hiding. But it can’t be good.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former first lady, are under pressure to testify before the commission.

Republicans aligned with Trump and calling for “transparency” are also sounding the alarm. Nancy Mace, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Republican from South Carolina, said she was concerned about “unnecessary redactions” – but added that she was “also concerned about ensuring that we protect the faces of potential victims and their names.”

But it’s clear that the Justice Department’s redactions may also have been too aggressive in some cases. A photo of Clinton, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross on a plane released Friday was also redacted to obscure a child’s face. The child was later revealed to be Jackson’s son, and the unchanged image is readily available in commercial photographic archives.