[0:00]So, three million pages of documents, 180,000 images, and 2,000 videos. The latest release of files related to the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is shocking in
[0:11]its size and its content. Investigations are now underway in at least 10 countries. We're still combing through the detail, and every day we uncover more and more about the crimes of the
[0:22]disgraced Financia and the people he was connected to. Well, over the next half an hour, we'll discuss the key revelations uncovered so far and the seismic impacts they've had. We have
[0:33]analysis from our chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donahu in Washington. In Windsor, our senior royal correspondent Daniela Ralph. Our political correspondent Nick Erdley is
[0:44]in Westminster. Our analysis editor Ros Atkins is in our BBC verify hub. And our business editor, Simon Jack, is here with me in London, as is Normia Ikbau,
[0:55]who's been looking at the response from the victims and their families. Plenty to digest, but it all started exactly a week ago.
[1:05]Today, we are producing more than 3 million pages, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
[1:15]In total, that means that the department produced approximately three and a half million pages in compliance with the act. >> Well, it's been a whirlwind week. By
[1:27]Friday evening, the new document showed Epstein and the former Prince Andrew kept a close relationship long after he was convicted in 2008. By the next morning, a photo had emerged of Andrew
[1:38]crouched on all fours over an unidentified woman. He has yet to comment on the latest release of documents, but has always denied any wrongdoing. On Sunday, Peter Mandlesson
[1:49]was back in the spotlight. Documents revealed Epstein paid $75,000 into accounts linked to the former UK ambassador to the US between 2003 and
[2:00]2004. He said he has no record or recollection of receiving the sums and didn't know whether the documents were authentic. Police have now started
[2:09]searches of two of his properties. On Monday, emails which appear to be from Sarah Ferguson, Andrew's ex-wife and former Duchess of York, illustrated the
[2:20]closeness of her relationship with Epstein, even whilst he was in prison. In one, she calls him the brother she always wished for. The emails do not
[2:30]indicate any wrongdoing. By Tuesday, the Met police launched an investigation into Peter Mandlesson. document suggested he'd been passing market sensitive material to Epstein when he
[2:40]was business secretary in Gordon Brown's government in the middle of the financial crisis of 2008. He maintains he did not act criminally and did not act did not act for personal gain. Well,
[2:52]Epstein had connections everywhere from Norway to Poland to Australia. Among them, Bill Gates. On Wednesday, the billionaire said he regretted every
[3:02]minute he spent with Jeffrey Epstein. Among the latest branch of documents, Epstein accused Gates of contracting a sexually transmitted infection from
[3:12]Russian girls, a claim he denies. On Thursday, the prime minister himself was facing huge pressure for appointing Mandlesson as US ambassador. Karma
[3:23]fronted the media to apologize. Well, at the heart of this scandal are the victims, the survivors of the abuse orchestrated by Epstein. Our
[3:35]correspondent, Nomi Igba, has been following the scandal for a number of years. And Nomia, for the victims, there are multiple strands, aren't there? Satisfaction because they campaigned for
[3:47]so long for this. Fury at the way that many have been identified, and fear that perhaps some of the worst hasn't been released here. >> That's right. so many strands because
[3:57]Matthew isn't just one abuser or one crime. Yes, Epstein was at the center of it. His web spann governments, royalty, finance, intelligence link circles in the US and the UK, years of
[4:08]institutional failure. But we are going through these documents one by one as journalists. We're analyzing. We're verifying. But for survivors, this is this is their life. This is their with a
[4:19]case of reopening their trauma, their abuse. And in many cases, they're discovering aspects of their abuse that they didn't know. And you touched on it there. Uh the Department of Justice,
[4:30]this is staggering. They accidentally released information about survivors who did not want to be identified, who've now been identified, and lawyers have said it's caused irreparable harm to
[4:41]them. I want you to have a listen to Marina Lassera. Now, she's originally from Brazil, now lives in the US. She met Epstein when she was 14 years old and he went on to exploit her for three
[4:52]years. This is what she had to say on seeing those files. When I seen my files that are no longer obviously in the
[5:01]DOJ's website, I was in shock because there are things in there that I did not know and I had to find out on that
[5:09]Friday when it was released. And it has drained me because I cannot stop
[5:17]thinking about it. And I I'm just I'm heartbroken about this. I'm extremely extremely stressed. I'm frustrated. I'm
[5:27]sad. I'm feeling every emotion and they are not good. I'm going to be honest. >> Marina speaking there to BBC News night. Let's also hear now from Ashley Rubbrite who was introduced to Epstein sometime
[5:38]after she turned 15. She had this to say on the fight for justice. >> We didn't choose this fight. We would have much rather have
[5:50]just been moms or you know gone after our careers and him just be a distant memory. Um but you
[6:00]know we weren't able to heal in peace. So now we're screaming in public because we don't have a choice anymore.
[6:10]and also Amanda Roberts. She spoke to the BBC News Night program. Now, she is a sister-in-law of Virginia Du Fray who is one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein and the former Prince Andrew.
[6:21]She was in that infamous photo where Mattbassen Windsor is seen with this arm around her. Glain Maxwell, who's also in that photo, who was convicted in 2021 as Epstein's co-conspirator, has confirmed
[6:33]seemingly that that photo is real. The former prince has always denied any wrongdoing. He previously even questioned whether that photo was real. He claimed it was doctorred and said
[6:42]he'd never met Jeffrey. Now, Virginia died by suicide in April 2025. Have a listen to what her sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts, had to say.
[6:52]>> It's a whirlwind. I think this moment I felt a moment of like such overwhelming emotion because I wish that
[7:02]she was here to see this. Um, she fought so hard and so long against all odds and
[7:10]she still was just so she was so strong for everyone, not just for her, but for her survivor sisters
[7:21]and every single survivor who has been discounted. Um, and so this moment, it's it's a bittersweet moment because we're we're proud of her and her
[7:31]accomplishments. And finally, I think the world is really beginning to see the truth and so we're proud of her, but we we miss her greatly in this moment because she should be
[7:43]she should be reing, you know, in this moment. >> Amanda Roberts. Now, the only institution doing any kind of investigation is Congress, but they don't have charging powers. They are due
[7:55]to hear from, as I mentioned, the person that has been convicted, the only person, Gla Maxwell. She is due to give a deposition next week. That is likely to retraumatize survivors, especially
[8:06]because yes, they wanted these files released, but they want accountability. They want investigations. They want people arrested. They want people charged. They want people jailed. and so
[8:17]releasing these files and there's more to come yet. We understand for them it's simply not a closed chapter. >> Nomia, thanks very much. Let's focus now on the epicenter of this entire scandal
[8:28]and the politics around the release of these documents in the United States. Let's go to our chief North America correspondent Gary O' Donahue. And Gary, Donald Trump resisted this move for a
[8:39]year. Now he's saying the country should move on. So talk me through the reaction there has been there. Well, there's been horror really at a
[8:50]lot of the fresh revelations that have come out of these 3 million plus documents over the last few days. And of course, people are still going through those things, still finding things,
[9:01]still finding photographs, still finding uh identifying information about some of the the survivors. In fact, the Department of Justice said that it expected to have released information
[9:12]erroneously and had set up an email address beforehand for people to get in touch to have things brought down. So, they knew this was coming down the line, but they argue they were under a
[9:22]deadline. They say their work is done, that their review of these documents is over, and that there is no grounds to prosecute anyone, anyone at all, apart
[9:33]from Epstein, of course, who's dead, and Gilelay Maxwell, who's in prison for 20 years. No other prosecutions currently being looked at. That is something, of course, that's uh incredibly difficult
[9:44]for many of the survivors to contemplate. They think, "How can there be so much information, so much circumstantial information without anyone else being held accountable?" And
[9:55]of course, we do know that the FBI were looking into co-conspirators, a number of co-conspirators, but we still don't know who those people are and uh to what
[10:06]extent they were investigated and what reasons there might have been for not prosecuting them. So, there's that. And as Nom was saying, Congress is the only real body that's looking into this. Now, it's a Republicanled House of
[10:17]Representatives. It's conducting its investigations. Yesesca Maxwell next week, but also at the end of the month, the Clintons, the Clintons will be here in Congress giving evidence to that
[10:29]committee. They declined, refused to do so for months, but it was the threat of contempt proceedings and potentially jail that has made them decide to come here. And they want to do it in public.
[10:41]We'll see whether that happens. If it does, Matthew, that will keep this thing going in a big way. Gary, a quick one. The material not released. Will that
[10:51]ever become public? >> Well, there's certainly a lot of pressure from members of Congress on both sides, in fact, and indeed from the
[11:01]survivors to get that stuff released. It's pretty vague about what it is. Some some of it apparently is child pornography. Some of it is images of death. It was described as by the deputy
[11:12]assistant, deputy attorney general. But he also said there was other material that was sort of a personal nature, medical nature. And people will be saying, "What is it? What can we see? Can we see the the redactions in the
[11:23]stuff that has been published?" All these questions remain. And yes, of course, there are still some documents in New York that may come out as well, but still a bunch of questions about the
[11:33]material that's already out there and what they're keeping back. Gary, thanks very much. Well, let's go from Washington to Westminster and to our political correspondent, Nick
[11:44]Erdley. And Nick, such a contrast between what is happening in the US and happening here because there has been a political earthquake in the last week with the prime minister fighting to stay in his job.
[11:54]>> Well, it absolutely has. The impact of the publication of these files has been profound in the UK. We already knew that Lord Mandlesen had been sacked as US
[12:04]ambassador because more links with Jeffrey Epstein had emerged last year, but this tranch of documents shows a very different relationship. It shows just how close they were, but also that
[12:16]Lord Mandlesson appears to have passed some sensitive information on to Jeffrey Epstein. Sensitive UK government information from when Lord Mandles was business secretary here. Stuff that
[12:28]included discussion over asset sales in the UK government, including information about a potential Eurozone bailout after the financial crisis. And that has
[12:39]really led to the earthquake you talk about in British politics because Lord Mandlesson is now no longer a member of the House of Lords. He's no longer a member of the Labour Party in which he
[12:50]was so consequential for the past few decades. There is now a massive question over the prime minister himself and whether his future is guaranteed because
[13:01]of his judgment of putting Lord Mandelen in the US ambassador job in the first place. So it is no exaggeration to say that the publication of these files
[13:12]could potentially bring down a prime minister. >> Well, exactly on that documentation and the paperwork that's going to become public, uh, real peril about what
[13:22]actually might come out, not just around the appointment, but wider. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the knock-on consequences of the Epstein
[13:32]files in the UK has been one, a police investigation into Lord Mandlesson. two, parliament voting to publish all the information the UK government holds
[13:44]about the vetting process for Lord Manden getting the US ambassador job and crucially all communications between Lord Mandolson, government ministers and
[13:55]special advisers whilst Lord Mandlesson was US ambassador. That's potentially a huge amount of embarrassing and potentially damaging information. Now,
[14:06]we might not see all of it publicly. There's a process going on where uh a committee of parliamentarians will decide if some stuff has to be held back because it's sensitive either for
[14:18]national security or international relations. That's pretty controversial in and of itself, but we are going to see a lot of information published by the UK government. A lot of it could be
[14:29]very problematic for number 10. Number 10 says it shows it will show that Lord Mandlesson lied during his vetting process. My understanding is Lord
[14:39]Mandlesson insists he was accurate in the answers he gave. But all of this comes back to that tranch of documents published in the US. Had that not been
[14:49]published, this trickle down of crisis for the UK government wouldn't have happened. As it stands this afternoon, Kier Starmer is still in his job, but
[15:00]plenty of his own MPs, Labour MPs, aren't sure how long that will be the case. >> Nick, thanks very much. Let's go straight to Windsor and our senior royal correspondent, Daniela Ralph. And
[15:11]Daniela, as we've already touched on, we've seen that new grim photo of Andrew crouching over a young woman, an email that appears to confirm the picture with Virginia Guprey was real. Grubby emails
[15:23]from Sarah Ferguson with her taking her daughters to meet Epstein in the week after his release from prison. It is devastating stuff, isn't it?
[15:33]>> It is. It's been a really difficult and damaging week for the royal family. And what has become crystal clear reading through so many of those emails this week is that the relationship between
[15:43]Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew Mountbatton Windsor, and Sarah Ferguson, his ex-wife, was very close. And in reading them all, you also get a sense of the power play in the relationship as well.
[15:54]And it's very clear that the power lay with Jeffrey Epstein. When you read the exchanges, his replies to them are quite curt are quite factual. But their
[16:04]responses to him are al almost over complimentary. They're fing. They're even desperate at times in tone. And I think looking at this latest drop of Epstein files has taught us a lot about
[16:15]the nature of the relationship between the three of them. Um the photos as you mentioned as well have also been extremely damaging and really unsettling. I think perhaps that one that emerged last weekend or a series of
[16:26]them of a barefoot Andrew Mountbatton Windsor casually dressed leaning over uh someone a woman lying down on the ground. We think that is in Jeffrey
[16:36]Epstein's uh home in Manhattan. It's not clear what the context is or quite was going what was going on. But again, it is damaging. It is unsettling. It's upsetting. And again, as you say, that
[16:47]photo, the photo that really in my mind marks the start of the downfall of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, of him standing with Virginia Grey, with Galain Maxwell in the background, a photo he
[16:57]said he had no recollection of. He he even questioned during his BBC interview whether it had been doctorred in some way. We now know from an exchange of emails between Jeffrey Epste and Gain
[17:08]Maxwell that it appears that Galain Maxwell says that photo is real. and Danella, growing pressure for the police to investigate Andrew and growing
[17:19]pressure on the palace and the king to do more to pressurize Andrew to cooperate with the US authorities. But we see in these emails countless efforts
[17:27]to do that that have been frustrated. >> Yes. all sorts of different paths that the authorities have taken to try and persuade Andrew Mountbatton Windsor over
[17:38]the year to talk to them to share information with them that just hasn't been successful. And it's been really interesting uh watching the response from the royal household from Buckingham
[17:49]Palace over the course of the past week. We haven't heard anything directly except from Prince Edward um Andrew Mountbaten Winder's younger brother who was asked a question about it at a conference he was speaking at in Dubai
[18:00]and said that his thoughts were with the victims. He said there are a lot of victims in this situation. The king and queen have out been out and about in the UK this week. Uh they were thrown questions, people shouted questions at
[18:11]them but there was no response from them either. Um sources uh within the royal household do say to us that you know at the end of the day whether Andrew Mountbatten Windsor gives evidence to the authorities is ultimately going to
[18:22]be down to one thing and that is his conscience. >> Daniela thanks very much. Well Jeffrey Epstein kept friends in high places. The British royal family is not the only one
[18:33]under pressure. The crown princess of Norway Metamarit features hundreds of times in the latest Files release relating to Epstein. She expressed a deep regret for her friendship with
[18:43]Epstein that continued even after his conviction. And there are many giants of business in those files. Let's turn to our business editor, Simon Jack. He's in
[18:54]the studio here with me. And Simon, as Nomia was saying earlier, this was a huge web, wasn't it, of of power, of money, of influence, of abuse. So, what have you picked out?
[19:05]>> You're right. It's a staggering network um of the richest and most powerful people in the world. In fact, um if you are extremely rich and powerful, there's every chance you will be mentioned in
[19:15]these files either as a correspondent or come up in correspondence. I should say there's no suggestion that just appearing in these documents is any implication of any wrongdoing. But it is a formidable roll call. Elon Musk,
[19:27]Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Leon Black, a big private equity guy, Sergey Bin, founder of Gula, Google, um, big bankers, Muhammad bin Salman, etc. Um, all of them are there in a kind of
[19:38]network. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, make introductions, etc. We've got some more flesh on the bones of things that have all already cost some of the top people um, their jobs. For example, Jez Staley you just had
[19:50]there, that's Leon Black, who is the founder of Apollo. they both had to step down because of their associations with um Epstein without admitting any wrongdoing. Uh you've also seen people
[20:01]like Richard Branson. He said I visit him a couple of times um but I regret that relationship only a few occasions more than 12 years ago was limited to a group of business settings. And then
[20:11]you've got sort of politicians as well, economists like Larry Summers. Um Elon Musk of course is in there. He was uh inquiring about attending a party there to which he never attended. and Bill
[20:21]Gates the history of um with him and uh Epstein goes back several years but I think what's interesting about this is if you look at Staley back Ben WG proser
[20:32]who um founded a PR company with Peter Mandlesson he stepped down from his own business just a year ago so this network which was meant to confer advantage and power and favoritism and getting you in
[20:43]is actually had incredibly corrosive effect um on some of the people who've been involved with him >> and it is worth underlining just the staggering nature of what is in those
[20:53]emails around Peter Mandlesson and what he was sending to Epstein around the time of the financial crisis sometimes within minutes of important meetings. That's I think that and actually the
[21:04]current governor of the Bank of England got actually quite emotional the other day um saying that he said he couldn't believe uh he was shocked at the fact that details of possible things like sales of government assets the break of
[21:16]RBS the bank a eurozone bailout big conversations in sensitive conversations in close quarters relayed within minutes
[21:26]uh by Peter Mandelson to Jeffrey Epstein to be passed on to his banking contacts and uh Andrew Bailey, I've never seen him like this. He said, "I don't want to sound pious, but is this is for all of
[21:37]us. How is that we live in a society in which this has happened and the cover up happened as well." So, there are investigations about whether those leaks about very sensitive matters uh
[21:47]constitute misconduct in a public office. That investigation is ongoing as Nick was talking about. And also, a lot of people have asked me, is this insider dealing? Is there stuff that he said that people could trade on? You know,
[21:57]possibly yes. The the the the definition of that is incredibly narrow. You have to prove that I would have bought this share because it was going to go up anyway. I think that's very difficult.
[22:07]But I think overall, Andrew Bailey expressed the view of many in the business community. They were pretty shocked this stuff was getting out. >> It's worth asking you. You've covered business for for decades. Have you seen
[22:18]anything quite like this? >> No, I never seen anything quite like this where there are so many um tendrils if you like to so many people. I mean, it's not just in in the in US business.
[22:28]It's in UK business. Muhammad bin Salman is in these um is in this correspondence. You've got as you're talking about people in Norway. Uh there are some families in France which are
[22:38]come up in correspondence. It's actually amazing how um actually a sort of lawyer from Brooklyn managed to construct this web and as I say the idea was to try and confer a bit of advantage and favor and
[22:50]ended up being very corrosive for all concerned. >> Simon, thank you for taking me through all of that. Let's head to the BBC Verify hub and our analysis editor, Ros Atkins. And Ros, just take us through
[23:02]the work BBC Verify has been doing on this cache of documents. >> Hello, Matthew. Well, the scale and the nature of this release of files has definitely to a degree shaped our work
[23:13]as you've been discussing. There are millions of files, emails, letters, photos, audio, and video. And the way that they were put online by the Department of Justice doesn't necessarily make them particularly easy
[23:22]to search and sift, which is why we've seen new developments throughout the last week as the BBC and other news organizations have searched through the vast amount of files. And there are different aspects of the work that we've
[23:34]been doing. Our data scientists have been producing different pieces of code to help us identify files of interest. We've also been verifying the location of some of the photos that have been released. And we've assessed close to a
[23:45]thousand videos. And there are different challenges that have come with that work. The videos, for example, frequently come with no additional information at all. So, no date, no location, no details of where the files
[23:56]are from. In addition, we've had to take great care with the language in our reporting. For example, in some videos, we're describing young females because we can't be sure if the videos show
[24:06]young women or girls. And then we have to reference the redaction errors made by the Department of Justice. You were discussing this earlier. Some of the photos and videos show survivors of
[24:17]Jeffrey Epstein and they can be identified. Some of these files have been taken offline by the Department of Justice, but not all. Needless to say, the BBC is taking great care to not
[24:27]identify the survivors affected by these redaction errors. All of this relates to the files that have been published. We should also say we're working to highlight fake files that are circulating. We're seeing fake emails
[24:38]claiming to be from Elon Musk, fake images claiming to show Sora Mandani, the New York mayor. Now, some of these fakes have had millions of views. And of course, it's important for us to
[24:48]highlight that they are not from the batch of files that were released. >> Ros, how do we see this story going? >> Well, I think we can definitely expect more stories stories to emerge from this
[24:59]batch of files. The work goes on by the BBC and by many other news organizations and because of the number of files even though we've all been working on this story for a week more details will emerge. And there's one other thing that
[25:11]I would emphasize and Nick was talking about this earlier. This act of transparency in the US with the Department of Justice sharing these files is potentially leading to further transparency in Westminster. We
[25:21]understand senior UK government figures may well have to share their electronic communications, their emails and messages that were exchanged with Peter Mandlesson. BBC understands that could
[25:31]be up to a 100,000 documents, which means there's going to be a lot more for all of us to see. And that, Matthew, isn't just about Peter Mandlesson. It may give us insights into how the UK
[25:42]perceives its relations with the US and perhaps how some UK officials see Donald Trump, too. So for all of those reasons for number 10, this story is far from
[25:53]over. >> Just in about 45 seconds, Rosit element, and they'll be feeling it in number 10. They'll be feeling it in a
[26:02]variety of capitals and individuals. There is so much that none of us really know what is still to come. And that could have all sorts of ramifications
[26:13]and consequences. Well, you're quite right because the Trump administration has moved around its position on how many files it will release, if it's going to release any. At one stage, Donald Trump did not seem
[26:24]to be committed to that happening. There was some criticism from within his own supporters, and now we've seen this uh really significant release of files in the last week. It's not clear how many
[26:35]further files will be released, but of course, we know further files do exist, and we know files outside of the Epstein files also exist. have just been talking about transparency in Westminster. And
[26:46]so, of course, anyone who's been involved in sending those messages will be wondering, will they be put in the public domain?