At least 16 photographsincluding one that showed a printed image of President Donald Trump inside a drawer in New York’s house Jeffrey Epsteinwere eliminated from the original collection of files that the US Department of Justice revealed this Friday. The lack of explanations by the authorities has fueled criticism of the way in which the Republican Administration has managed the publication of the files of the Epstein case, which implicates international personalities and which Trump used extensively during his election campaign to discredit an alleged list of Democratic leaders, including Bill Clintonwith ties to the financier and convicted sex offender, who died in prison in 2019 while facing federal charges for sex trafficking of minors.
In an interview for the American network NBC, the deputy attorney general of the United States and Trump’s defense lawyer in the criminal case against the president, Todd Blanchehas responded to the questions raised by the deleted image in which Trump appears. “It is absurd that we remove a photo – a single photo – because President Trump appears in itand the fact that everyone tries to act like that reflects their true motivation,” he said. “In that photo you can see photographs of women. After their publication, we learned that there were concerns about them,” he explained, alluding to the need to protect victims. However, when asked if this implied that the women posing with Trump in the photograph were Epstein’s victims, Blanche backed off. “No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he responded.
The images disappeared from the original list of documents on Saturday. Deleted files also include photographs of the police investigation that show the massage room on the third floor of Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan, where investigators and witnesses claim that many of the sexual assaults occurred, some of them against minors. The images removed from this room showed paintings and photographs of naked women.
However, some photographs of the massage room’s decoration remain among the published files. The Department of Justice You have not specified the criteria followed to remove the documents nor has it responded to media questions about the matter, although it published a notice on X yesterday reporting that the materials continue to be reviewed. “Photographs and other materials will continue to be reviewed and censored in accordance with the law, out of an abundance of caution, as we receive additional information,” the department said.
Cover-up accusations
Democrats have denounced through social networks the lack of transparency in the publication of the Epstein case files, driven by the law that Donald Trump signed last November and which ordered the making public of all unclassified materials about Epstein. The legislation contemplates how limitations on total publication of the documents those who identify victimswhose images show child sexual abusewhose records hinder a federal investigation ongoing or otherwise classified.
However, criticism arises from the large amount of redacted information and skepticism that said censorship responds to the assumptions included under the law. In fact, after discovering the deletion of the 16 files, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee They accused the White House of a cover-up and pointed directly to the United States Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Pam Bondi, is this true? What else is being hidden?” We need transparency for the American public“, they published in X.
The Democratic representative, Ro Khanna, and the republican, Thomas Massiepromoters of the law that requires the publication of the Epstein case files, have announced that they are going to present a inherent contempt charge against Bondifor what they consider a cover-up of information about the authors or personnel of interest related to a case of sexual assaults on minors.
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