Donald Trump lashed out over the holidays after the Justice Department confirmed it had discovered more than 1 million additional documents related to the late Jeffrey Epstein, reigniting scrutiny of the former president’s past ties to the disgraced financier.
The documents, discovered by FBI agents and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, are being reviewed and redacted before being released publicly, the Justice Department said. The trove includes grand jury transcripts, internal memos, flight logs and other materials that could shed new light on Epstein’s network and his 2019 death in federal custody.
Trump, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, issued an angry response to Truth Society magazine.
“Now another 1,000,000 pages have been discovered about Epstein. The Department of Justice is being forced to spend all their time on this Democratic inspired hoax. When did they stop talking and work on election fraud etc. The Democrats were the ones working with Epstein, not the Republicans. Release all their names, embarrass them, then get back to helping our country! The radical left doesn’t want people talking about the success of Trump and the Republican Party, just Jeffrey Epstein who died long ago – just another witch hunt!!!”
Days earlier, the Justice Department missed a Dec. 19 deadline to release the documents under the Epstein Documents Transparency Act, a law Trump himself signed in 2020.
Officials now say they will need “a few weeks” to complete the revisions and will release the documents in phases.
Trump’s holiday message also veered into Epstein territory.
In a lengthy Christmas post, he wrote, “Merry Christmas to everyone, including the many gangsters who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him tons of money, went to his island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest man on earth,” before accusing them of betraying Epstein once “things got too hot.”
He continued, “When their names are mentioned in the ongoing radical left witch hunt (plus a nasty ‘Republican’ Massey!), and it turns out they’re both Democrats, there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do.”
The newly discovered documents are part of an ongoing federal investigation into Epstein’s criminal activities, including his 2019 arrest and subsequent death. The documents include previously undisclosed material, including emails, photos and surveillance footage.
Logs disclosed in an early batch of documents show that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least eight times between 1993 and 1996.
A 2020 email from a federal prosecutor said Trump flew on planes “much more than previously reported,” sometimes with Ghislaine Maxwell and an unnamed minor.
A redacted FBI document from the same year included allegations from a former limousine driver who claimed he overheard Trump referring to “Jeffrey” and “abusing some girls.”
The claim, which has not been confirmed, was included in a batch of documents released under transparency laws.
Equally surprising were the photos from Epstein’s estate that were turned over to House Democrats showing a bunch of novelty “Trump condoms” with the words “I AM HUUUUGE!” emblazoned on the packaging.
The items, which were sold at a New York novelty store during Trump’s presidential campaign, were confirmed by fact-checkers to be authentic but were not considered evidence of a crime.
Still, the former president has made clear that he believes the release of the document was politically motivated.
He also believes the focus on Epstein distracts from what he calls “the success of Trump and the Republican Party” and called for the immediate release of the names of all individuals linked to Epstein.
