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DOJ Official: No Epstein Charges Likely02/02 06:24
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top Justice Department official played down the
possibility of additional criminal charges arising from the Jeffrey Epstein
files, saying Sunday that the existence of "horrible photographs" and troubling
email correspondence does not "allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody."
Department officials said over the summer that a review of Epstein-related
records did not establish a basis for new criminal investigations, and Deputy
Attorney General Todd Blanche said that position remains unchanged even as a
massive document dump since Friday has focused fresh attention on Epstein's
links to powerful individuals around the world and revived questions about
what, if any, knowledge the wealthy financier's associates had about his crimes.
"There's a lot of correspondence. There's a lot of emails. There's a lot of
photographs. There's a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by
Mr. Epstein or people around him," Blanche said Sunday on CNN's "State of the
Union." "But that doesn't allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody."
He said victims of Epstein's sex abuse "want to be made whole," but that
"doesn't mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up
with a case that isn't there."
President Donald Trump's Justice Department said Friday that it would be
releasing more than 3 million pages of documents and more than 2,000 videos and
180,000 images under a law intended to reveal most of the material it collected
during long-running investigations into Epstein.
The fallout from the release of the files has been swift.
In the United Kingdom, Lord Peter Mandelson announced his resignation from
the governing Labour Party on Sunday following further revelations about his
relationship with Epstein. He said he was stepping aside to avoid causing
"further embarrassment," even as he denied allegations he had received payments
from Epstein two decades ago.
A top official in Slovakia, meanwhile, left his position after photos and
emails revealed he had met with Epstein in the years after Epstein was released
from jail. And British Prime Minister Keir Starmer suggested that longtime
Epstein friend Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew,
should tell U.S. investigators whatever he knows about Epstein's activities.
The revelations continue
The files posted to the department's website included documents involving
Epstein's friendship with Mountbatten-Windsor, along with Epstein's email
correspondence with onetime Trump adviser Steve Bannon, New York Giants
co-owner Steve Tisch and other prominent contacts with people in political,
business and philanthropic circles, such as billionaires Bill Gates and Elon
Musk.
The Epstein saga has long fueled public fascination in part because of his
past friendships with Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Both men have
said they had no knowledge Epstein was abusing underage girls.
Among the records was a spreadsheet created last August that summarized
calls made to the FBI's National Threat Operation Center or to a hotline set up
by prosecutors from people claiming to have some knowledge of wrongdoing by
Trump. That document included a range of uncorroborated stories involving
different celebrities, and somewhat fantastical scenarios, occasionally with
notations indicating what follow-up, if any, was done by agents.
Blanche said Sunday that there were a "ton of people" named in the files
besides Trump and that the FBI had fielded "hundreds of calls" about prominent
individuals where the allegations were "quickly determined to not be credible."
Some of Epstein's personal email correspondence contained candid discussions
with others about his penchant for paying women for sex, even after he served
jail time for soliciting an underage prostitute. Epstein killed himself in a
New York jail in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex
trafficking charges.
In one 2013 email, a person whose name was blacked out wrote to Epstein
about his choice "to surround yourself with these young women in a capacity
that bleeds -- perhaps, somewhat arbitrarily -- from the professional into the
personal and back."
"Though these women are young, they are not too young to know that they are
making a very particular choice in taking on this role with you," the person
wrote. "Especially in the aftermath of your trial which, after all, was public
and could be -- indeed was -- interpreted as a powerful man taking advantage of
powerless young women, instead of the other way around."
In a 2009 email, not long after Epstein had finished serving jail time for
his Florida sex crime, another woman, whose name was redacted, excoriated him
for breaking a promise that they would spend time alone together and try to
conceive a baby.
"I find myself having to question every agreement we have made (no
prostitutes staying in the house, in our bed, movies, naps, two weeks Alone,
baby...)," She wrote. "Your last minute suggestion to spend THIS weekend with
prostitutes is just too much for me to handle. I can't live like this anymore."
'This review is over'
Blanche said in a separate appearance on ABC's "This Week" that though there
are a "small number of documents" the Justice Department was waiting for a
judge's approval before it can release, when it comes to the department's own
scouring of documents, "this review is over."
"We reviewed over six million pieces of paper, thousands of videos, tens of
thousands of images," Blanche said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday
that he believed the Justice Department was complying with the law requiring
disclosure of the files.
But Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a co-sponsor of the law, said he did not
believe the department had fully complied. He said survivors were upset some of
their names had inadvertently come out without redactions.
Blanche said each time the department has learned a victim's name was not
properly redacted, it has moved quickly to fix the problem and that those
mistakes account for a tiny fraction of the overall materials.
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