Unpacking the latest Epstein files

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. Have you ever thought about the future? Not tomorrow or next year, but what life might look 60 years from now? It's actually really hard, and we know that, because 60 years ago, we asked people to try. You all commute daily and hourly, so fast through space in your private flying sources. Global peace and international harmony will be completely attained by the year 2000. So will our predictions be just as wrong? I'm Matt Bevanand, and from if you're listening, this is Black Swans, a special series about why it's so hard to predict the future. It's available now on ABC Listen. There are three million pages and thousands of mentions of Donald Trump. The US President says the latest batch of the Epstein files clear him, and the US Department of Justice says there's no need for any further investigation. But is that really the end of it? Today, David Smith, from the United States Studies Centre at Sydney Uni, on what the latest files mean for Trump and others, and the millions of documents still hidden. I'm Sam Hawley, on Gadigal Land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. 3 million pages, 180,000 images, 2000 videos, made public, further exposing Jeffrey Epstein's web of crime and influence. Today's release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people. In one email, Elon Musk asks when will be the wildest party on your island? The files include an email from Epstein offering the King's younger brother an introduction to a 26-year-old clever, beautiful Russian. In another, Andrew invites Epstein to visit Buckingham Palace. In a drafted note, Epstein alleges Bill Gates caught a sexually transmitted disease from having extra marital sex with Russian girls. A spokesperson for the billionaire called the claims absurd and completely false. David, 3 million pages of Epstein-related records that is a lot to work through. Now, we know there are emails, but what are the documents are involved in this huge amount of material? So, there are also a lot of photographs, 180,000 of them, and there are also videos. A lot of the documents that are available are news articles or things that were already publicly available. There is also some information about previous investigations that have taken place by the FBI. But the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who released the documents, has stressed that there is nothing in here that provides enough evidence to directly prosecute anybody else. The victims want to be made whole, and so we want that. The Attorney General wants that more than anything, but it doesn't mean we can just create evidence, or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn't there. So, the Department of Justice has said it will not be opening up any new investigation because of these documents. Now, is this everything, though, just before we move on, or is there still documents that haven't been released publicly? Well, the Department of Justice had initially said that there were six million documents pertaining to law enforcement efforts, and now three and a half million documents have been released. So, there are still two and a half million documents outstanding, and Democrats in Congress, in particular, have really wanted to know why those documents haven't been released. What's in them? And has every document that mentions the word Trump been released? Yes, or no? Now, the Department of Justice has said that it won't release material that depicts abuse, it won't release material that endages the victims, but the victims point out that in the latest tranche of material that's being released, despite the redaction effort, some victims are still identifiable, some survivors, their names actually appear in these documents. It mustn't feel like much justice, I suppose, at this point for them. Why don't we, David, now, though consider what we have learnt about Donald Trump's relationship with the convicted sex offender? Because, of course, he resisted for a really long time, didn't he? Releasing these documents? Yes, he did. So, there are 5,300 new documents related to Trump in some way, according to a proprietary search by the New York Times. But there's not very much in here that is actually new. There is a summary of an FBI investigation into unverified tips about Donald Trump's relationship with Epstein. So, these were members of the public who submitted tips to the FBI about Trump, including people who claim that they'd had contacts with Trump or claim that they'd been abused by Trump. But the FBI has stressed that these are unverified. So, these are un-collaborated. And certainly, Todd Blanche has really stressed that there is nothing in there that incriminates Donald Trump. We did not protect President Trump, we didn't protect or not protect anybody. I mean, I think that that there's a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. But there is indirect information about Donald Trump, particularly the fact that Epstein really wanted to leverage his relationship with Trump. All right, well, Donald Trump says that the documents absolve him. When I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me, it's the opposite of what people were hoping, you know, the radical level of that. You reckon he's right on this? Well, Trump always claims that everything absolves him. Certainly, in the sense that these documents are un-corroborated and unverified, they suggest, and the FBI suggests that there's no basis for an investigation into him. It's not like they say that he never had anything to do with Epstein, though. And Trump is one of the people who has really downplayed his relationship with Epstein, even when the evidence that is available suggests that there is more there than Trump was willing to acknowledge. Like a lot of people in these files, there isn't evidence, at least not direct evidence, not corroborated evidence, that they were involved in criminal wrongdoing. But there is stuff that is very embarrassing in terms of showing the extent of their relationship with Epstein. All right, well, let's then look beyond Donald Trump because many other well-known men are named as well. But as you say, just because they're named doesn't mean they're guilty of any wrongdoing. No, that's right. And one of the big names that has come out of this is Elon Musk. So Elon Musk is another person who claimed that he actually refused contact with Epstein, that he was invited to Epstein's island but refused to go. The emails that have been released tell a different story. They do seem to suggest that Musk wanted to go to the island, even to the extent of asking what dates would be the best dates for the wildest parties at the island. But at the same time, there's no evidence in there that he ever actually went to the island. And this is very typical of the kind of relationships that we see. Epstein was very interested in cultivating these relationships with very rich and powerful people. So this included Elon Musk. It included Bill Gates. It included Peter Teal. It's very awkward because of the fact that Epstein was convicted of a very serious offence in 2008 related to soliciting sex with a minor. And a lot of these emails come from this period early in the 2010s or in the mid 2010s when these people don't seem to care about that. Now that's not the story that they've been telling. The story that they've been telling is that after it became clear what Epstein had done they refused to have anything to do with him. But that is just not the case. We see this period of quite a long time between his first conviction and then all of the initial convictions that came along where everybody from the one-time president of Harvard to people who are now members of Trump's administration like Howard Lutnik that they certainly didn't mind being associated with Epstein. Of course Epstein died in jail in 2019. Now in relation to Elon Musk he actually responded to this on X. He's of course social media platform on the weekend. He said no one pushed harder than him to have these files released and that he declined repeated invitations to go to that Epstein island. Now Kevin Rudd of course is named in these files again you know just because your name doesn't actually mean you're implicated in anything because it looks like Epstein he really did try to pursue powerful people and Kevin Rudd at the time was Prime Minister. Yes from the reports I've read about that there were third parties involved who were trying to arrange some sort of meeting between Rudd and Epstein but it looks like that never happened. We should of course also mention the former Prince Andrew is in these documents. In one image he's on or falls leaning over a woman whose identity is redacted. Again he's always denied any wrongdoing. Yeah and he is one of the people who has really taken the hardest fall. It is remarkable not just how much Epstein was pursuing famous rich and powerful people but just how successful he was and when the first group of files was released last year one of the really striking things about it was just how many famous rich and powerful men were going to Epstein for advice about everything from relationships to oil prices was just amazing how much of a confident he was to all of these famous people. All right well David let's look at what comes next as we mentioned will not be any new investigations launched by the Department of Justice in the United States but Kirstama the British Prime Minister he has urged Andrew to testify before a congressional committee. That kind of seems unlikely that that would happen though at this point. It does seem unlikely that it would happen. I don't think that Andrew would agree to that even with the pressure coming from the British Prime Minister certainly more people want more files released because it was a major part of Trump's election campaign that the Epstein files would be released not just part of his election campaign though part of his whole political movement for many years now has been about suggesting that there is this massive conspiracy mainly involving Democratic Party political figures and that Epstein is a key part of this conspiracy and so this is why Trump's own supporters are often at the forefront of the push for the release of more documents even though that increasingly implicates Trump himself. So people are not going to be satisfied by this there are both Republicans and Democrats in Congress who are demanding to see the unredacted files so the Justice Department has said that it will give members of Congress access to unredacted files but with so many of those files out there it's you know it's really unclear how useful those are going to be. It's pretty incredible isn't it that there's only one person in jail in relation to Epstein's crimes and that's a woman Galaine Maxwell as we said the victims of Epstein's it mustn't feel like much justice for them at this point. No it really doesn't and I mean at the moment we have no way of knowing whether there's anything in the unredacted files or in the remaining files that haven't been released that would provide evidence for an investigation or conviction of anybody else. You can understand why the victims are so distrustful at this point because of the way that this process is gone because of all the stalling and the initial refusals and the way that at every point the Department of Justice's main priority seems to have been protecting the reputation of Donald Trump. That's not to say that they're withholding evidence about Trump but with every single release of these files there has been publicity there has been spin from the Department of Justice about the ways that this doesn't implicate Trump. So the fact that this has been the Department of Justice's main priority rather than the you know the fearless pursuit of truth and justice from the point of view of the victims this really does suggest that the Department of Justice isn't interested in going after the powerful people who were actually involved in the abuse. Whether or not there is actually any evidence and there may not be sufficient evidence in any of these files the Department of Justice has irrevocably damaged the trust in the process. All right so David what do you think is this the end of the matter then and can Donald Trump really wipe his hands of it now? I doubt that this is the end of the matter because there have been many points where the Department of Justice suggested it was the end of the matter and it wasn't and certainly not with two and a half million files still outstanding. David Smith is an associate professor at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. This episode was produced by Sydney Pied and Cinnamon Nippard, audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Quirley. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.