Starmer suggests Andrew should testify to US Congress, after new photos in Epstein files.We’ve been taking a look over some of the newly released Epstein files. In the first dataset, which is a stream of court documents, there are lots of heavily redacted documents and email exchanges. Amongst them are psychological reports into Jeffrey Epstein while he was in prison and details about a laptop being delivered to Ghislaine Maxwell.

There are also documents in which whole pages are redacted, such as the one pictured below.

We’re continuing to comb through the latest batch of Epstein files – stay with us.

Blanche defends DoJ’s missed deadline, says they were protecting victims

Blanche now faces a question on the criticism the DoJ has faced on the handling of the release of the files.

He compares the size of the six million pages to “two Eiffel Towers”, and that the department was “obviously” not defying the 30-day deadline set by Congress (which expired in December), but were complying with the need to protect victims.

Users asked to confirm age before accessing new Epstein docs

As you go to access each new dataset on the DoJ website, users are asked to prove they are aged 18 or older before entering.

From there, a webpage appears with a series of links to the individual documents, which our teams are beginning to pick through.

It will take us quite some time to go through all of the material. Even downloading it to our search tools (as we are now) is a long process.

We’ll share any significant disclosures on this page – stay with us.

DoJ ‘did not protect’ Trump when reviewing Epstein files

Blanche says the Justice Department “did not protect” President Donald Trump in its review of the Epstein files.

He says there is a hunger and thirst for information about Trump that he does not think will be satisfied with these documents.

Trump’s direction to the Justice Department was to be “transparent”, he says, which is what they did.

Blanche declines to share what is new in latest document batch

Blanche is asked about whether he can share what is new and not new in this tranche of documents, and if he can reveal whether there are any new high-profile names mentioned in the documents. He declines to do so.

We are currently reading through the millions of pages that have just been released and will update you with what we find.

Epstein victims have faced ‘unspeakable pain’ Blanche is asked about the Epstein abuse victims and survivors, and is told some have “expressed frustration” at the process of releasing the files.

“Same here,” he responds.

“The victims of Epstein have gone through unspeakable pain,” he continues.

He says he hopes that the work that has been done over the last months has been able to “bring closure” to the victims.

Blanche is asked if there are any ongoing investigations related to Jeffrey Epstein.

He responds by saying he is not trying to be “coy” when he mentioned that some redactions could be related to ongoing investigations and that there is no tranche of “super-secret” Epstein documents that the Department of Justice is withholding.

Blanche takes questions on Epstein files

Blanche is taking questions.

A journalist asks about Ghislaine Maxwell’s claim that more than two dozen men signed secret agreements with the federal government to avoid being prosecuted.

Blanche says he has no reaction to this and reiterates that his department has reviewed “every single piece of paper” associated with the investigations and that if such arrangements exist, he is not aware of them.

DoJ takes child exploitation seriously

Blanche says he takes “umbrage” any the suggestion the DOJ doesn’t take child exploitation seriously, and goes on to list some of the recent investigations it has undertaken.

“Every single day the DOJ investigates and prosecutes people guilty of people trafficking,” he says, adding that the department recently arrested 293 offenders and terminated 3.8 million dark web accounts.

Every woman’s image has been redacted in latest release

Blanche is now giving more details on the redactions we can expect in the newest release of the Epstein files.

He says there have been extensive redactions in photos and videos to for personal identification purposes.

The Justice Department has redacted every woman in images and videos other than Ghislaine Maxwell, he said. No men were redacted unless it was impossible to redact the woman without redacting them as well.

As a reminder, appearing in these files does not indicate wrongdoing.

We’re starting to look through the material – here’s how

When it comes to images, the first thing we do is check if they’ve previously appeared online via a reverse image search.

If there are people featured in the images who we don’t recognize, we’ll use publicly available facial recognition tools, but they aren’t always reliable, so we might need further corroboration.

We’re also combing through the text documents and any video – we’ll bring you details as soon as we can.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche lists the information that was excluded from the publication today.

These categories include information with personally identifiable details of victims, medical files, any depictions of child sexual abuse material, anything that would jeopardize an active investigation, or anything depicting death or physical abuse.

He adds that they have blurred the faces of any women who appear in the files, other than Ghislaine Maxwell, and have not redacted the faces of any men who appear.

Photos and videos taken by Epstein and those around him – DoJ

Blanche goes on to say that the 2,000 videos and 180,000 images are not just taken by Epstein.

He says some of these are commercial pornography, although some do appear to be photos and videos taken by Epstein and others around him.

3m pages, 180,000 images, 2,000 videos released – Blanche

Todd Blanche says that the Justice Department has released three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos in its latest drop of files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The deputy attorney general adds that this means a total of 3.5m pages have been released in compliance with the transparency act.

DoJ says 500 lawyers working on Epstein files

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche starts by confirming that he is giving an update on the release of the Epstein files.

Justice Department employees have been working hard to get the files released, he said, with more than 500 lawyers and professionals spending long days and nights to complete this production.

Three new datasets live on DOJ

As Todd Blanche speaks, three new datasets relating to the so-called Epstein files have been uploaded to the US Department of Justice website.

We’re beginning to comb through them now. Stay with us.

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