Trump admin redacted his name in this section of the Epstein files

The latest Epstein files included former President Bill Clinton and a redacted President Trump.

The Justice Department released thousands of files related to sex offender and accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in a much-anticipated document dump Friday.

The documents are the result of Congress forcing the Trump administration’s hand. The administration had initially promised extensive disclosures on Epstein but then, in July, abruptly changed course. Congress ultimately last month passed a bill requiring the administration to release the files, after a bipartisan revolt.

The documents are not everything the Justice Department has; it said Friday it will continue rolling them out in the coming weeks. But they give us our biggest glimpse to date of what the administration initially decided not to release.

The documents carried extensive redactions — and for more reasons than the law prescribed. The redactions were also inconsistent, with the same content being redacted in one instance but not in another.

In some cases, the redactions included whole pages and even whole documents, as was the case with 119 pages of grand jury testimony.

Democrats cried foul, as did Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who helped lead the Epstein discharge petition effort. The Kentucky Republican said the document dump “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

Caption from article by Aaron Blake, CNN.