The Department of Justice left multiple unredacted photos of fully nude women or girls exposed as part of Friday’s dump of more than 3.5 million pages of files related to the investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell. Unlike the majority of the images in the released files, both the nudity and the faces of the people were not redacted, making them easy to identify. In some of the photos, the women or girls were either fully nude or partially undressed, posed for cameras, and exposed their genitals.
The files include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday in a press conference, including “large quantities of commercial pornography and images that were seized from Epstein’s devices,” some of which were taken by Epstein, according to Blanche.
404 Media emailed the DOJ on Friday evening for comment after a reader found the exposed photos.
“Our team is working around the clock to address any victim concerns, additional redactions of personally identifiable information, as well as any files that require further redactions under the Act, to include images of a sexual nature,” a Department of Justice spokesperson told 404 Media in an email. “Once proper redactions have been made, any responsive documents will repopulate online. As stated on the website, and in public materials.
404 Media then sent the DOJ specific links to the images on the DOJ’s website. The files stayed online for at least another full day, until Sunday evening, when they disappeared.
Another file in the dump is a typed message from investigators, commenting on the content of three CDs found in Epstein’s possession. Each CD is marked as “POSSIBLE CSAM,” referring to child sexual abuse material.
Another file containing comments from investigators on the three CDs says “Mostly fine, a few Suspected CSAM photo items in photos, needs to be SPLIT.” The photos on the DOJ’s website were of people in sexually explicit poses and situations, but it was unclear whether they were underage.
The DOJ released the files because it was required to by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but missed the December deadline set out by the act. President Donald Trump signed the act into law on November 19, at which point Attorney General Pam Bondi had 30 days to release all of the files. On December 19, the DOJ released about 10,000 files, and on December 23 it released another 30,000.
The amount of information released and the unorganized way the government released has made it difficult to cover.
Jason Koebler
“In view of the Congressional deadline, all reasonable efforts have been made to review and redact personal information pertaining to victims, other private individuals, and protect sensitive materials from disclosure,” a notice from the DOJ says at the top of every page of files. “That said, because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content, to include matters of a sexual nature.” The Epstein Library also asks if visitors are over the age of 18 before entering the site.
If a member of the public “identifies any information that should not have been posted,” the notice says, the DOJ asks them to notify them at EFTA@usdoj.gov “so we can take steps to correct the problem as soon as possible.”
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the DOJ left 43 of 47 full names of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims exposed in Friday’s data.
Joseph Cox
“We are getting constant calls for victims because their names, despite them never coming forward, being completely unknown to the public, have all just been released for public consumption,” victims’ attorney Brad Edwards told ABC News. “It’s literally thousands of mistakes.”
According to the New York Times, a group of 18 survivors of Epstein’s abuse said in a joint statement reacting to the release of data exposing their identities: “Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous. This is not over. We will not stop until the truth is fully revealed and every perpetrator is finally held accountable.”