Epstein files release as it happened: Celebrities, politicians feature in photos, Congress told of 1200 victims as US Justice Department makes public Jeffrey Epstein files

And that concludes our live coverage of today’s publication of the Epstein files, on a dramatic day that has seen only a limited release of photographs and documents.

Democrats and Republicans are now threatening to impeach or prosecute Donald Trump’s Attorney-General, Pam Bondi, over the partial release of the files, which have also been heavily redacted.

Victims of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein are disappointed, with one saying redactions were obviously made to protect the rich and powerful men who had witnessed or taken part in Epstein’s crimes.

One released document, however, has confirmed that the FBI received a complaint about Epstein’s predilection for child pornography nearly a decade before he was properly investigated for child sex offences.

You can read more about the day’s events here.

The story of today is really what is not in the files released by the US Department of Justice, rather than what is in them.

We haven’t got grand jury evidence and transcripts, we haven’t got internal FBI memos, we haven’t got names of alleged co-conspirators – something the politicians pushing for the release of these documents were expecting (or wanting) to see.

Or perhaps we have, and we just can’t see them. The level of redaction in these files is huge. I’ve just seen a 100-page document that is entirely blacked out – you can’t even tell what the document was supposed to contain.

It’s far from the only one. Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, who led the push for the files’ release, said there was a 119-page document of New York grand jury testimony that was completely redacted. This release “fails to comply with the law”, Khanna said.

His Republican colleague Thomas Massie, who also led the push for transparency, agreed the document dump “fails to comply with both the spirit and of the law” that President Donald Trump signed 30 days ago.

Deputy attorney-general Todd Blanche has said there will be more documents released over the coming two weeks, so we await those to (hopefully) learn more.

The US Department of Justice has begun releasing hundreds of thousands of documents related to its investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

It has created an “Epstein Library” consisting of the new disclosures under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, as well as all the previously released material related to Epstein.

You can access the vault here: https://www.justice.gov/epstein

There are (so far) four large zip files.

The long-running furore over the so-called Epstein files is expected to reach new heights after a judge ruled that a tranche of documents previously kept secret be unsealed. The documents are expected to offer more insights into the federal investigations into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator and occasional lover, Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein died in jail before he could be tried. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year jail term for child sex trafficking.

US President Donald Trump has been in an awkward position over the Epstein files for the better part of his second term in the presidency. He has called the files boring, a hoax and “something nobody cares about” and denied he had contributed to the so-called “Birthday Book” presented to Epstein on his 50th birthday. Ultimately, though, both Democrats and Republicans have agreed that many of the files should be unsealed.

“The questions on everyone’s minds, I think, are whether high-powered men took part in the abuse or helped to cover it up,” Holly Baltz, investigative editor at The Palm Beach Post, one of the Florida newspapers responsible for surfacing many of the Epstein revelations alongside the Miami Herald, told us in August. “They also want to know whether the government buried information in order to protect them.”

Here is what might be revealed.

If the Epstein files released today were supposed to be a bombshell, it was a bomb that failed to detonate – at least, not in the expected way, our North America correspondent Michael Koziol writes in his analysis of today’s events.

It was only in the hours before the deadline that the Trump administration admitted it was not going to release all the Epstein files on Saturday (AEDT), the legal deadline.

Deputy attorney-general Todd Blanche went on Fox News to say that while “several hundred thousand” files would be made public, there would be several hundred thousand more released over the next two weeks – the Christmas and New Year’s break.

Pretty convenient timing. But the limited amount of information released today means the Epstein saga will continue to dog Trump. Rightly or wrongly, the notion that something is being covered up here will persist.

You can read more here.

Video footage included in the latest release of the Epstein files shows the faces of young women, some of who are naked, the UK Telegraph reports.

The faces and bodies of the vast majority of females featured in photographs and footage released today have been redacted, with the US Justice Department citing privacy reasons, but some images do not appear to have been blurred, the paper reports.

These include young women featured in a video filmed by a justice official walking through one of Epstein’s homes. The women were in photographs hung on the walls of the house, or displayed in other areas of the property, and included some that were naked or topless.

WARNING: Graphic content

A newly surfaced interview from 2006, contained within the Epstein files, details the account of a 14-year-old girl who described an encounter with Jeffrey Epstein in blunt, childlike language.

The girl told police that she met Epstein, who was introduced as “Jeff” at his Palm Beach House. His assistant directed her to give “Jeff”, who was aged 45 at the time, a massage.

She told police that Epstein did not change his clothes in front of her but as he removed his towel before the massage, he exposed himself.

She recalled that Epstein was “very hairy, particularly on his chest”, and said his hairline extended down to his buttocks.

“She thought Epstein was on steroids because he was a really built guy and his wee wee was very tiny,” the document said, referring to his penis.

Other photos released today feature Epstein with a host of well-known faces. Here are some of them.