The U.S. Department of Justice has released a set of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, revealing a contact list that includes several high-profile celebrities and political figures.
According to the New York Post, the released files, totalling approximately 200 pages, included flight logs from Epstein’s private plane and a heavily redacted photocopy of an address book purportedly compiled by Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
However, the documents, made public on Thursday, contained no new revelations about Epstein’s sex trafficking case and largely included information that has been in circulation for years and have been referenced in multiple court cases over the years.
Among the well-known figures appearing in Epstein’s contact list are Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, late pop icon Michael Jackson, actor Alec Baldwin, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, supermodel Naomi Campbell, and musician Courtney Love. Other notable names include Bob Weinstein, brother of convicted film producer Harvey Weinstein, businessman David Koch, late Senator Ted Kennedy, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former Secretary of State John Kerry, and actors Dustin Hoffman and Ralph Fiennes.
Additionally, members of the Kennedy and Trump families, including Ethel Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Ivana Trump, and Ivanka Trump, also appeared in the documents. Notably, the list did not include the name of any sitting U.S. president.
The Department of Justice stated that the release of these files was part of its commitment to ‘transparency’. However, the documents did not offer any significant new insights into Epstein’s operations. A separate list of more than 150 pieces of evidence was also included, detailing items such as massage tables, sex toys, and nude images, though it remains unclear whether this list pertained to Epstein’s case, Maxwell’s trial, or another investigation.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had previewed the document release during a Fox News appearance, saying, “Breaking news right now, you’re going to see some Epstein information released.”
The documents were initially distributed to political commentators at the White House in binders labelled “The Epstein Files: Phase I.”
Epstein was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls in the early 2000s, but wound up serving just 13 months in jail. He was indicted on federal charges in New York in 2019, more than a decade after he secretly struck a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of similar charges of sex trafficking.
The case has drawn widespread attention because of Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s links to royals, presidents and billionaires.
