A top US prosecutor signaled Sunday that authorities would not bring any more charges after the release of millions of new documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a case that has drawn in many world-famous names.
“The review that we had done before concluded that there was no such information, and that’s where we remain for what we’ve seen and what we’ve released from the Epstein files,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on CNN’s “State of the Union” show.
More than three million items made available online over the weekend included emails, photos and video clips, and mentions of numerous powerful figures such as President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
“This review is over,” Blanche added in an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” saying just a small number of documents were still being reviewed by a judge.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, is the only other person charged in connection with his crimes. She was convicted of trafficking underage girls for Epstein and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Survivors of Epstein have said their alleged abusers “remain hidden and protected” despite the latest release of documents.
Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer, has dismissed suggestions that embarrassing material about the president was redacted, and Trump suggested that the latest document dump cleared his name.
“I didn’t see it myself, but 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 left,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Saturday.
– Social circles –
The explosive case has dogged Trump, who moved in the same social circles as the disgraced financier in Florida and New York, with the president fighting for months to prevent release of the vast trove of documents.
Trump’s right-wing base has long been obsessed by the Epstein saga and the belief that the financier oversaw a sex trafficking ring for the world’s elite.
Blanche has said he did not expect the “Epstein files” to quell public curiosity and conspiracy theories.
Trump has given varying accounts of why he fell out with Epstein and has criticized the file dumps, saying that people who innocently met Epstein over the years risked having their reputations smeared.
The series of document dumps in recent months have shed light on Epstein’s ties to top business executives such as Microsoft’s Gates, celebrities such as filmmaker Woody Allen, academics and politicians, including Trump and former president Bill Clinton.
In a draft email among the latest published documents, Epstein said Gates had engaged in extramarital affairs, a claim the Gates Foundation denied in a statement to The New York Times.
Former prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal titles over his ties to Epstein, is mentioned many times, including in a document inviting Epstein to Buckingham Palace in 2010 after Epstein proposed introducing Andrew to a Russian woman.
Epstein was convicted of soliciting an underage person for prostitution and died in a New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking of underage girls. His death was ruled a suicide.
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