Jeffrey Epstein files latest: Trump administration criticized over partial and heavily redacted release

By Sarah Haque · The Guardian World

Democratic senator Ro Khanna says: ‘the most important documents are missing’ Hello. We are resuming our live coverage of the Department of Justice’s long-awaited release of documents from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein , the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than 15 years. The first cache of ‘Epstein Files’ were released on Friday evening after months of delay and stalling from the Trump administration. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche told Fox News that he expected the department to release several hundred thousand more files in the coming weeks. Missing documents & ‘over-redactions’: Khanna said that the partial “document dump this afternoon does not comply” with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and told CNN, adding: “The most important documents are missing.” Those documents are a draft 60-count federal indictment outlining charges against Epstein, and a detailed memorandum summarizing the evidence that was disregarded by the US attorney, Alex Acosta , who chose instead to offer Epstein an extraordinarily lenient plea deal. According to a Fox News report , the justice department redacted the names and identifiers of victims and “the same redaction standards were applied to politically exposed individuals and government officials”. Massie wrote on social media that the attorney general, Pam Bondi, could be convicted by a future justice department of obstruction of justice if she violated a provision of the law by redacting the names of government officials. Massie noted that the law explicitly states that no documents may be “withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official”. Blanche later called Fox News to insist that the justice department is “not redacting the names of any politicians”. Instead, the justice department said it may have “over-redacted” the Epstein files in order to “protect victims”. Jay Clayton ,…