[0:00]reported that there could be more than 1,200 victims discovered by the Justice Department during its review of the documents. They include flight logs, contact books, photos, and a mass list.
[0:11]Some of the photos include the rich and famous, but there is no suggestion that any of them were involved in any wrongdoing. They include Bill Clinton, Sir MC Jagger, Michael Jackson, and Sir
[0:22]Richard Branson, and the former Duke of York, Andrew Mountbatton Windsor. This image shows Andrew reclining across the legs of five people whose faces have
[0:32]been redacted. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. But the official documents released by the Trump administration about the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein are not complete. Many
[0:44]of them have been redacted as well. And the Department of Justice says more files, as we were just discussing, will be made public in the coming weeks despite a deadline to release them
[0:53]today. Democrats say that's unacceptable and the US government is in breach of federal law by not publishing the files in full. Our US correspondent Mark Stone
[1:04]has been across this uh since uh things were released what a couple of hours ago uh now Mark and as we were just discussing it's looking like four tranches over the next couple of weeks
[1:16]which is not going to satisfy people right now. Yeah, good evening, Matt from Washington. Just gone six o'clock uh in
[1:25]the evening here on on the day uh that the US president had said he would make sure his justice department began to
[1:34]release uh the Epstein files as they have become known and they have done just that. uh we are getting uh the first trunch of of what we believe will
[1:44]be many hundreds of thousands of documents that uh the justice department has said cannot all be released uh today. They have so many documents. They have so many redactions to do uh
[1:56]protecting the identity of uh victims and others uh that they uh will release more documents over the next two weeks uh they say. And then of course there is
[2:07]a a distinct lack of context uh to these documents. It's worth stressing before I go through some of what we've got here uh that association with Jeffrey Epstein
[2:18]uh does not equate to wrongdoing or to guilt. We know that that Epstein was um a a huge networker. He was a prolific networker in the words of of Peter
[2:29]Mandlesen speaking to our own James Matthews a few months ago. Of course, one man who did have an association with him, an association which brought him down. Uh there have been no uh mentions
[2:40]of Peter Mandlesson, incidentally in these documents so far. Uh but uh he moved, Epstein moved in in social circles in in in business circles, uh
[2:51]show business um and the academia as well and all those sorts of people, politics too. All those people are represented represented uh in these
[3:01]documents. And of course uh royalty. You mentioned uh Prince Andrew. Well, here he is in an image that we have not seen uh before. It's not clear when it was taken. Uh but he is lying across uh the
[3:13]legs of uh four women. Uh the only woman who has who is being other woman who has identified in that image is Gen Maxwell. Uh so that is um that is one image o of
[3:24]Prince Andrew Andrew Manbat Windsor that has been released. Uh there is um an image here again this is kind of typical of a lot of these images faces all redacted. We believe this was taken in
[3:35]one of Epstein's homes when it's not clear which one. Uh but all those faces have been redacted. The redactions done by the Department of Justice and they say that is to protect the identity of
[3:46]victims of sexual abuse. This is an image um of um Diana Ross, of Michael Jackson, and of Bill Clinton. Uh Bill
[3:56]Clinton does feature in quite a lot of these images. We know uh that he had an historic uh um association uh with Jeffrey Epstein, one that he has since
[4:06]like so many people says that he deeply regrets. Um this is an image of um the Duchess of York of Sarah Ferguson. uh we don't know who the woman uh whose face
[4:17]has been redacted there is. We don't know when that image uh was taken. There are other images as well. This is a file um one of of so many files and the faces of this uh of these women or perhaps
[4:29]it's the same woman that is not clear. Have all been uh redacted. Is that because this woman is a also a victim of Jeffrey Epstein or has it been redacted
[4:40]for other reasons? Again, we simply do not know. Uh this is an image from uh a court document uh a court the court case
[4:49]of of uh uh the um victim Jane Doe 3. Again Jane Doe given because their name has been protected. Jane do number
[4:58]three. These are are effectively answer phone messages. Someone has written down messages of phone calls that have come in for Jeffrey Epstein. Uh the date is 2004
[5:09]and they stretch into 2005. And have a look here. It says, "I have female uh for him." That that message repeated a couple of times. Uh lots of images of
[5:21]Jeffrey Epstein, as you might expect. Court documents as well. Uh here uh some of them completely redacted. Uh with every black line, uh there will be calls
[5:31][snorts] of cover up. Well, some of the documents here 119 pages. Every single page has been redacted. Uh the Justice Department thought it appropriate to do
[5:42]that. There may well be very good reason for that, but it will not stop the conspiracy uh theories going on. Another one of Jeffrey Epstein there. Uh what looks like a sort of scrapbook similar
[5:53]to the birthday book that was already released a few months ago. Uh here it's kind of creepy in its nature. The only person identified in this scrapbook is Jeffrey Epstein. Massage for dummies
[6:04]here. uh many of the victims who have gone public and indeed those who haven't but whose testimony is available in court data have talked about how Epstein and Galen Maxwell recruited them as
[6:15]massuses recruited them and and and taught them how to massage. Gen Maxwell appears to have been obsessed with with massage. She herself, it is known, would
[6:26]massage Jeffrey Epstein a lot, foot massages and and others and then and many of those uh victims were encouraged to do the same. And then of course the
[6:37]massaging uh led to uh sexual abuse. This is an image of two people who have been um the last one Matt who've been um identity hidden taken in Paris. You can
[6:49]see the Eiffel Tower uh behind. Well, uh one of the um uh the victims who has gone public and who was written in some detail about her abuse at the hands of
[6:59]Jeffrey Epste and Gillen Maxwell uh is Virginia Jafrey, then Virginia Roberts, famously photographed with Prince Andrew. We don't know if she is one of the two women in this image, but she
[7:08]traveled uh to Paris uh with Jeffrey Epstein and Gen Maxwell. uh they got her a passport in order for her to be able to travel internationally uh with them
[7:19]and she alleges and has many times now and in her book that she was among many other people one of their sex slaves. >> Mark, thank you very much indeed. And to
[7:29]that point about massage, it's it's not new, but there is a list uh in the files called Mass's list, fully redacted with what looks like 254
[7:40]names on it. People would have possibly known of that before, but it is there again as a reminder of how much that featured in things. Let's go back to James Matthews, who's also in uh DC and
[7:52]across this for us. James, I think it would be interesting and important to just reflect on the choreography of today from the point of view of the White House because we saw Donald Trump
[8:03]earlier flanked by the CEOs of plenty of big farmer companies announcing alongside RFK and others how they had driven down the prices of medicines for
[8:14]Americans. And then he took no questions afterwards, which is unusual for him not to do. Then around about 9:00 uh UK time, which is 4 in the afternoon where
[8:25]you are, this first release, which we thought could be the whole lot, but it's not. It's maybe what a quarter or certainly the first trunch of Epstein files being released, we now know is
[8:36]going to happen over the next uh couple of weeks. And in the middle of all of that, then an announcement from well, the Department of War, the war secretary
[8:45]Pete Hgse, about military action they've been carrying out as well. Are these things related? Is the timing of this kind of stuff a coincidence?
[8:55]What's your read? >> Well, make up your own mind, Matt. Uh, frankly, cynics, and actually, you wouldn't have to be very cynical, would
[9:06]look at this and think, right, you've got several hundred thousand documents. We were promised full publication today. We didn't get that. We got a partial
[9:15]publication in that initial headline grabbing publication. Huge day of huge significance in the Epstein story. There is little to no mention of Donald Trump.
[9:26]Bill Clinton's all over it. Other celebrities are all over it. The story being shaped is of celebrities lured innocently into the company of Jeffrey
[9:38]Epstein. So no mention really of Donald Trump that I can find of any uh significance coinciding with the very moment of
[9:47]publication is news that breaks from the authorities here from the department of war uh from the administration that America has launched air strikes on
[9:58]Syria uh which actually is no surprise because there were American service people who were killed a few days ago along with their interpreter. So ISIS is
[10:08]being targeted in Syria. There are sites bombed in the desert in Syria. Big news story, huge news story which will merit column inches in the newspapers tomorrow. It's certainly grabbing
[10:20]attention across the networks here. So you know if you were a PR on Donald Trump's side, a public relations uh
[10:29]highly paid individual to essentially marginalize him from the scandal. I think things are playing out according
[10:38]to strategy 101. Create a diversion in Syria. Make sure your guy is not in the initial trunch, which is the big
[10:48]headline trunch, and bury him in the second release. By which time people will have seen celebrities galore, innocents uh lured into the company of
[10:58]this monster very innocently. And that that as I say that shapes the story uh towards an impression because you know the story is largely about innocence
[11:10]being lured into the dark world of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. It would not surprise me at all if when he is named in that second tr she stands up
[11:19]and say and says look Diana Ross was in the company of this guy. um you know icons, n national treasures found
[11:28]themselves in the company in photographs with Jeffrey Epste and it happened to everybody. Why, you know, why should there be any scandal that I was a friend
[11:39]of this individual? So, I can see that being the strategy from a PR point of view, media management that spans today's release
[11:48]and any further release, bearing in mind, and I do stress that Donald Trump emphatically denies all knowledge of uh Epstein's criminality or involvement in
[11:59]that criminality. Um, [clears throat] I think my thoughts two hours in, uh, Matt, and you know, you've heard from Mark and myself, we've got a team
[12:10]looking through the the revelations, this publication, and journalists across this town are doing the same. Two hours in, my overriding thought is this takes
[12:22]us no further. This takes us no further in terms of Epstein's activities. Uh the fact that he associated with high society, the rich and famous. Uh it
[12:33]takes us no further in our knowledge of criminal associations of any any of those uh people that he mixed with. And
[12:44]I think it takes us no further. Therefore, uh, in terms of clearing our minds, clearing our feet of the Jeffrey Epstein
[12:53]story thus far, a story that's dismissed, remember, by many, as a hoax, as a conspiracy, as kind of nothing to
[13:03]see here. I think we are no further forward. We're only two hours in and of course it's going to take days to digest everything that is involved in these
[13:14]publications. But we knew he was a monster. We knew there were victims. Okay, we're learning today that there were more than 1,200. We knew about his activities. We'd seen pictures of his
[13:25]properties. We'd seen the lurid detail uh and the lurid pictures of him and the company of underage girls. Um, but you
[13:35]know what we're learning today, what do we know now that we didn't know two hours ago, I'm not sure there's very much that takes this story much further that develops the story to a point where
[13:47]we can make definitive conclusions about the significance of others. Um, I think in terms of the noises off, uh, there
[13:57]are plenty of them. We're hearing, um, from the White House. The White House insists today that what they are all about is transparency. They're calling
[14:07]this an act of transparency. Democrats, the opposition are very much not. We've heard from them today pre-publication. Chuck Schumer, leading Democrat in the
[14:18]Senate, he's come out with a statement saying the Department of Justice have broken the law. Remember, it was the law that we had full publication publication today. Chmer Schumer says this, "The law
[14:29]Congress passed and President Trump signed was as clear as can be. The Trump administration has 30 days to release all the Epstein files, not just some.
[14:40]Failing to do so is breaking the law." He says, "This just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, are hellbent on
[14:51]hiding the truth." That's a statement from Chuck Schumer. And you know, one point I would make, Matt, is that yeah, we're getting publication with redactions. There has been a tight time
[15:02]frame, 30 days since Trump signed that law. But a point to be made is that Donald Trump could have released these documents anytime he liked, redactions
[15:13]or not. Remember, he resisted publication. It took it took much political effort on the part of his opposition and actually bolted on
[15:23]Republican support. remember Marjgerie Taylor Green and others within the MAGA movement. Uh it took pressure from opponents and Republican colleagues to
[15:34]force him to say, "Okay, uh we're going to release these documents, how they're released, the form and timing of their release." That's been up to the Department of Just Department of
[15:46]Justice, which is very much in his pocket. in terms let me just uh tell you one thing looking again looking through some of the detail here and looking for
[15:57]for British content we've seen uh the man formerly known as Prince Andrew I can tell you we've come across a handwritten note from a survivor of
[16:08]Jeffrey Epstein who was on his island uh and was in the company of Naomi Campbell the the British model now remember Naomi Naomi Campbell
[16:20]uh has emphatically dismissed any knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's criminality and put considerable and put
[16:28]distance between her and him. But this handwritten note from a a victim, it reads, "We ha he had separate quarters,
[16:39]no set schedule, gathered outside area, very leisurely. People would come to Ireland. Jeanluke comma Naomi Campbell
[16:50]and older people less traffic that note ends. So you know bits and pieces that tell us something about Jeffrey Epstein.
[17:02]But because we don't have any real broader context, no explanatory notes, it's all essentially pumped out there. It's left to us and the public at large
[17:13]to try to make sense of it and how it all fits into the bigger darker picture of Jeffrey Epstein. And that's the stage
[17:23]we were at two hours ago. It's the stage we are at right now 2 hours in. as we search for more clues as to the
[17:32]significance of the Epstein story and as I said before the significance of others who were involved to a degree with them many of them I stress innocently lured
[17:44]into his company >> James thank you so much uh let's uh bring in Nema Ramani a former federal prosecutor I was talking to around about 20 minutes ago who's still with us Nema
[17:54]thank you for uh for staying back let's just pick up on that point that James quoted there uh with Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, obviously a prominent Democrat, saying simply
[18:05]releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law. He sounds pretty unhappy about this. He may well be echoing what others are
[18:17]saying. Does he have a point? >> Potentially, yes. And this is why I expect maybe as early as next week a lawsuit related to the Epstein files. I
[18:28]think members of Congress and the American public really expected full disclosure today, not redactions spanning hundreds of
[18:39]pages. Let's be clear, there's really only one category of information that still should be redacted, and that is information identifying victims, and that's it. grand jury materials, judges
[18:50]have already ordered them unsealed in multiple cases. Yes. So, if we're talking about grand jury transcripts, those should not be redacted. And this shouldn't be a Friday afternoon dump. And we all know that when you want to
[19:02]bury bad news, you bury it on a Friday afternoon of partial individuals, right? Obviously, we know
[19:10]that Bill Clinton is no uh friend of President Trump. Why are we not seeing all the images? And frankly, these images are not what I'm expecting to
[19:20]see. I'm expecting to see FBI interview memoranda, the 402. Why aren't we seeing those memos? Why aren't we seeing the
[19:29]terabytes of video evidence that we saw discussed in the Ghislaine Maxwell case, in the Virginia Giuffre civil lawsuit, that
[19:39]should all be disclosed. Pictures are not enough. There is much more information in the Epstein files than these pictures that we're seeing and
[19:50]these documents that are redacted. I think this is just a partial production. And again, I think a judge will probably ultimately have to get involved at Congress's urging to force the
[20:01]Department of Justice's hand to make everything public without any more redactions than necessary. Because let me just finish off uh Nemo by asking you about the privacy notice that that greets you when you go onto the
[20:12]Department of Justice website uh to search through the Epstein library. They're covering themselves by saying because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless
[20:24]contain information that inadvertently includes [clears throat] non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content. What they're really saying there is we've tried to redact this so we might
[20:34]not have redacted the right things >> but they've redacted a lot and they said there's 1200 victims and family members. So yeah obviously I'm sensitive to
[20:45]victims of sex abuse. I don't want them outed or identified if they don't want to be. But I find it hard to believe that hundreds and hundreds and thousands
[20:56]of pages that are fully redacted all contain information about victims and only information about victims. It just it defies logic and common sense. You
[21:07]know, I've participated as a young lawyer in these types of document reviews and discovery and I've redacted information that's confidential, that's privileged. This level of redaction is
[21:18]very significant. Again, you're talking about images, some of which only have a picture of Jeffrey Epstein. >> Yes. >> Again, it's possible that these are all victims of sex abuse or child
[21:29]pornography. I accept that. But this level of redaction with the production not being complete, with so far me seeing nothing about the president, and
[21:39]I don't necessarily think the president had anything to do with any of the sex abuse. He may not have even had knowledge of this, but at a minimum, I think we can all accept that he was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. So,
[21:50]>> Nema Romani, appreciate your time uh this evening. We're going to bring in Yasmin Mayer now, who is a senior attorney at the Bloom Firm, which represents Epstein victims. Good evening
[22:00]to you. What's uh what's your reaction to what looks like the first trunch of four of the Epstein files being released today?
[22:10]It's clear that the government was in a rush to make a 30-day turnaround for the release of these materials. And that is
[22:19]ironic to say the least that they the government was rushing for a 30-day turnaround because the government has known Jeffrey Epstein was a sex predator of children for nearly 30 years, if not
[22:31]longer. So the fact that there is a that there is a clear rush to make a deadline for release of this information and then
[22:39]missing that deadline is uh it's unfortunately in line with the what the expectation was. Well, let me just come
[22:49]come back on that because are you saying then they've been rushing to redact this in the past 30 days and that's why they can't release it all in one go which if that is the case it suggests that
[23:00]perhaps they never had any intention to release this at all had Congress not forced them to. That's certainly what it looks like it
[23:10]may be. And the very text of the Epstein Files Transparency Act provided those sorts of loopholes. They provided loopholes for information uh that could
[23:21]jeopardize an ongoing investigation. They of course provided for redactions of victim uh information, which absolutely should be the the only acceptable redactions that we should be
[23:32]seeing here. It does look at first glance like there are a great deal of redactions. It will have to be further explored uh whether those are indeed
[23:42]victims or uh children or appropriate redactions but it is extremely concerning but not entirely surprising that there is going to be an additional
[23:54]document production or multiple >> and we're seeing now the level of reduction. We've seen hundreds of well
[24:02]more than a 100 blacked out pages of uh what looks like testimony given to a grand jury for example. The kind of thing that other former federal
[24:13]prosecutors saying shouldn't be redacted at all. This should be in the public domain. >> Absolutely. It it it's impossible to know what has been redacted without
[24:23]seeing the material which is an unfortunate fact. But the fact is the government has has known about Jeffrey Epstein being a predator since the
[24:33]1990s. And in fact, the Bloom firm today filed a lawsuit against the FBI on behalf of eight victims of Jeffrey Epstein who were abused after the FBI failed to investigate him based on
[24:45]credible information that they had going back to the 1990s. There there is a great deal of information here that has yet to be released. And only time will tell is is the government going to do
[24:56]it? Is it going to to finally hold itself accountable and do the right thing? >> [snorts] >> Well, Chuck Schumer, who [clears throat] is of course the Senate Minority Leader
[25:06]and a prominent Democrat, saying, and this is something I put to the previous guest, I'd be interested to get your uh response as well, saying simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of
[25:17]transparency and the letter of the law, which suggests something could be done about that in Congress. Again, [clears throat]
[25:27]>> it's it's possible there would there would need to likely be some bipartisan support for something like that and absolutely if there isn't >> which there was for the law in the first place. Right. So the act in the first
[25:38]place had bipartisan support. >> That's correct. But it's not quite that straightforward. There was a great deal of of infighting and there was a great deal of controversy about that. And
[25:50]really at the end of the day that the act passed because it's there was really there was really no other choice. Just coming back on this though, look,
[26:01]we're discussing the legalities of this. We're discussing Democrats calling out a Republican uh White House, a Department
[26:11]of Justice that operates under that administration as well. Is there a risk that these 1,200 victims potentially that we hear about get lost in all this?
[26:22]They're the most important people potentially getting forgotten about the people that you represent. >> That is what has been happening since Jeffrey Epstein's death if not before.
[26:32]The conversation has centered around Jeffrey Epstein. Who who are the wealthy and powerful individuals who may have been involved? It's become a political battle where each side is using Jeffrey
[26:44]Epstein to as a weapon against the other side that the the survivors and their stories and their voices are lost here. Nobody is talking about what they went
[26:54]through and what they experienced and really the the just the the lack of any accountability >> which would be extremely meaningful to
[27:05]them. Uh final question uh from me Yasmin Meer. It seems we're at the start of a long process here. It's a start that a
[27:16]lot of people wanted to see in terms of files being released. It could be a couple of weeks before everything is out there. Of course, over the Christmas
[27:25]holiday as well. Let's not forget. Do you think once uh whatever is released is out in the open, it could make a tangible difference to the victims or
[27:37]maybe not? >> We need to see a full release of everything. We need to see who associated and was involved with perpetuating crimes alongside Jeffrey
[27:47]Epste. We know he didn't do this alone. Unless we have all of the information, then the the survivors are not going to have the answers that they need and
[27:56]justice will not ever be served here. Yasmin, I appreciate you joining us. And look, we're just seeing pictures of very recognizable people on the screen alongside Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton,
[28:08]we just saw Mick Jagger. And just to remind you, there's no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of those people just because they've been pictured uh in his company. Yasmin, I appreciate your company. Thank you very much indeed for
[28:20]joining us here on Sky News this evening. And if you're just joining us, the breaking news tonight is that the US Department of Justice has begun releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files. It's reported there could be more than
[28:31]1,200 victims discovered by the Justice Department during its review of the documents. Those documents include flight logs and contact books and things like a massers list of hundreds of
[28:42]names. Some of the photos include the rich and famous, but there's no suggestions any of them were involved in wrongdoing. But they do include Bill Clinton, who we just saw, Sir MC Jagger,
[28:53]Michael Jackson, Sir Richard Branson, and the former Duke of York, Andrew Mountbatton Windsor. This image, in fact, shows him reclining across the
[29:03]legs of five people whose faces have been covered. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. But the official documents released by the Trump administration about the late pedophile
[29:14]Jeffrey Epstein are not complete. Many of them have been redacted as we've been discussing. And the Department of Justice says more files will be made public in the coming weeks, perhaps the
[29:25]next Fortnite, despite a deadline to release them all today. Democrats have been saying that is unacceptable and the US government is in breach now of
[29:34]federal law by not publishing the files in full. Our US correspondent Mark Stone has this analysis of what we have learned from the files so far.
[29:45]>> Here is a um a scrapbook. Um I repeat what I've said number a number of times now. We don't have the context. Uh this is a scrapbook uh that appears to have
[29:54]been put together for Jeffrey Epstein. It is reminiscent of the birthday book that you'll remember was released a few months ago. the birthday book that Gillen Maxwell put together for Jeffrey
[30:05]Epstein uh which itself uh had a drawing that was said to be uh done by one Donald Trump. He denies that that drawing was him. It certainly had
[30:16]photographs and a birthday messages from from one Peter Mandelen which precipitated uh the the career downfall of the former British ambassador uh
[30:27]here. So, this is a birthday book and and again, many redactions in it. Faces redacted as you can see here. It's kind of creepy, I have to say, looking at it because it's clear that in most of the
[30:39]images he is photographed uh with women, females, women or or girls. Um this is Epstein um with a with a face mask on.
[30:50]Uh this we we showed a little earlier a an illustration of how some documents are entirely redacted. Uh this is the grand jury deposition uh a grand jury
[31:01]deposition that was released. Um but every single page of the 119 pages has been completely blanked out. Um that is
[31:11]another court document. It is of Jane Doe number 103. One of many of um Epstein's victims. 103 doesn't necessarily mean that there were that many victims. There may have been. We
[31:22]just don't know. Um it could just be another re another way of numbering uh the the victims. I think this is interesting. A photograph of um a book
[31:33]of the from the well-known uh series for Dummies. This is Massage for Dummies. The context here is that many of the of the girls who were recruited into the
[31:44]the warped world of Jeffrey Epstein were recruited as massuses and Virginia Jafrey once Virginia Roberts the one of his victims um who took her own life
[31:56]earlier on this year in Australia. She in her um book published after her death. She outlines in in extraordinary
[32:05]detail how she was recruited by Jeffrey Epstein and by Gellen Maxwell as a masseuse. She worked at Donald Trump's
[32:14]Maraago Club down in Florida. Uh Jeffrey Epstein at the time when he and Trump were associated. Trump has since said that he disassociated himself from
[32:24]Epstein uh in the years after that. But uh but Virginia worked at that club. She was then recruited by Galen Maxwell into the world of Epstein as a masseuse uh to
[32:34]get trained as a masseuse. And she quickly discovered uh that she was in fact uh going to be uh one of his sex slaves frankly and in her book she she
[32:44]accounts that in quite some detail. uh she has been uh discredited and in fact by some and in fact in some of the the court documents you get a you get a sense of of the court arguments that
[32:55]took place back and forth uh with some defense lawyers for Epstein trying to discredit Virginia Jaffrey for having uh changed her story over the years and in
[33:06]the book she she she kind of goes into some detail of why she did that. So she is one of the few one of a few victims who has gone public and I think the
[33:16]sense we get from these documents is that there are others uh who have chosen to to remain anonymous and uh their faces and their names uh in these
[33:26]documents continue to be um hidden from public view. me now is Luchia Osborne Crowley, legal affairs reporter and the author of The
[33:36]Lasting Harm, witnessing the trial of Galain Maxwell. Uh, good evening to you. So, you've looked at this story in depth already. A lot of people were waiting a
[33:47]long time to see the Epstein files released. Some of them have now been released. What do you think? >> Well, I have uh many many thoughts as
[33:57]you can imagine. Um firstly, of course, we don't have them all yet. Uh which is very disappointing. Um and of course, we have all of these redactions. Um which
[34:07]is also very disappointing. Obviously, redactions to protect the identities of victims are entirely appropriate. Um but in some of these documents, uh it's clear that the reductions uh go far
[34:17]beyond that. So um you know my first thought is that uh obviously we need more and we need uh this government to do what they said they were going to do
[34:28]uh which was release all the files. Um my other takeaway uh is uh to do with uh the people around Epstein. You know
[34:38]we've we've known for some time that that these figures were associated with him. Uh but these new pictures uh really I think um mean that a lot of these
[34:49]public figures should really be be questioned about what they knew. Um, for example, and and this person is is not a public figure, but there is in these
[34:58]files a letter to Jeffrey Epstein, uh, where the person says, uh, you know, you're going to get in trouble for what you're doing with these girls, um, and
[35:09]says, uh, very degrading things about the girls. So, that the author of that letter knew at least to some extent what was [clears throat] happening. Um, and
[35:19]so that to me is is really important because um that should lead us to ask a lot of questions about who else knew and and what they knew and and when.
[35:31]>> Yes. As you say, we don't know how careful the redaction has been. There's a disclaimer effectively at the start saying we may have made mistakes and if
[35:42]we have, let [snorts] us know. But nevertheless, the Department of Justice knows all the names in these. And you think if something like uh the name the person
[35:53]you just mentioned is known to them, they're going to have to follow up and follow up quickly, aren't they? >> Yes, absolutely. And and that is what you would expect of of any FBI or
[36:05]justice department. And I certainly hope that's what's happening. I mean, uh, I certainly hope that, uh, investigations are being started, uh, potential indictments or charges into, uh, these
[36:16]people or at least, uh, finding out what they knew. Um, and obviously with the the caveat that that these photos don't imply any wrongdoing, but as as we've all seen, uh, there are a lot of photos
[36:27]of of Bill Clinton. Um, and in some cases, uh, with women, um, who have been anonymized, um, but, you know,
[36:36]physically touching them, um, and I I first reported in in 2022, uh, that a victim had met him with Jeffrey Epstein. Um,
[36:47]>> and so, you know, that this these new photos of him with women, um, I think really, uh, really strongly show us that
[36:57]that you he has to be questioned about what what he knew and when and what his role was, if any. Well, he he he did say in his memoir last year book called
[37:07]Citizen My Life After the White House. Bill Clinton said, "Even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein's plane was not worth the years of questioning
[37:18]afterward. I wish I had never met him. Nevertheless, do you think the former president and others should now should now be quizzed about what they knew and
[37:28]when?" And and of course, it could be nothing. They could be they could have been hoodwinkedked by Epstein like lots of other people were. >> Absolutely. Uh that you know that is always a possibility but you know when
[37:40]uh the former president says um that it wasn't worth all the questioning um you know I I don't think he has been put through uh as rigorous uh amount of
[37:52]questioning as one would expect in this kind of situation. I mean >> um so I do think they all should face more questioning. Um this is one of the
[38:03]biggest sex trafficking rings in modern history. Um anyone who is in these photos um particularly in in photos with
[38:12]women um must must be investigated and and questioned about what they >> just just let me finish by sort of
[38:22]mentioning this point to you. There's a lot of focus on Bill Clinton because he seems to be in a lot of this early evidence. But of course, we know there are going to be three more tranches,
[38:33]they say, over the next couple of weeks. And so others are saying, well, they've managed it to look this way to begin with. >> I Yes. And I'm I'm sure that could be
[38:44]true. Uh that absolutely could be a political move. Um but it it doesn't change the fact uh that that anyone who was around this uh should should be
[38:56]questioned about what they knew. You know, the the politics of it aside, um you know, we're talking about one of one of the most serious crimes uh that that
[39:05]you can commit. So, even if it's kind of being uh led by with pictures of him um for political purposes, I still don't think that takes away from the fact that
[39:17]he and anyone in all of the other tranches um should be forced to face real serious questions from the press and from the authorities. >> Luchia, thank you for your time this
[39:28]evening. Earlier on, I spoke to Michael Yaki, who's a former senior adviser to the leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi. >> I think it's going to be a very
[39:39]interesting day as people start to go over what could be hundreds of thousands of documents. Uh your reporter just saw a a very long a very short glimpse and I think that they're limiting actually how
[39:50]long people can get into the website uh right now in order to get it. But, you know, it's never going to be I don't know if it's going to be enough. uh they already said they weren't going to release all the documents today and
[40:01]notwithstanding the law uh passed by Congress and signed by the president and that's going to you know continue to spark curiosity and and concern and
[40:12]skepticism over whether we're really going to get to see everything that people are talking about or or think they want to talk about or want to see uh in the Epstein files uh of this
[40:24]incredibly disreputable horrible uh person uh who who ruined so many lives uh while he while he was on the this earth.
[40:34]>> Yes. Look, we can see from this document how heavy the redaction could be and you would assume that there are people's names on there and those people need to be protected. I mean there there are legal reasons for this redaction to
[40:45]happen. There has been some nervousness though on the Democrat side that that the redaction might be too heavy-handed to protect people who perhaps don't need to be or shouldn't be protected. Well, I
[40:56]think I think the fact that uh in in the first uh dump you found a lot of Bill Clinton pictures probably underscores a little bit of that concern because that's what people are going to be
[41:07]focusing on early early on and and uh the aside from the reference to the check from D. Trump. Uh, nothing visual
[41:16]yet of of the president, but I'm sure that there will be more to come. And certainly, again, the fact that they're not releasing all of them and that they may release more, say, on, you know,
[41:27]Christmas Eve when people aren't going to be paying that much attention when newsrooms aren't that aren't that heavily staffed. I wouldn't be surprised to see that. But in the end, I do think
[41:37]that most of this should be coming out. It just won't come out all at one time. And then the question is going to be how heavily redacted is it uh and what is
[41:47]being withheld and that's always going to be nagging at uh at this entire disclosure issue with with regard to Epstein because the the truth have been has been so hard to get at and there's
[41:58]been s such concern about whether or not there really has been any truth stemming from his first conviction uh where he was basically a slap on the wrist uh to
[42:09]the to his mysterious death in in prison. to to this dispute over the past, you know, many many years over whether or not all the all the information was
[42:20]going to be put out there despite de declarations by uh the president when he was president as a candidate as president again and his attorney general. Uh you know, there's a certain
[42:31]amount of skepticism whether or not we're going to actually get everything uh that that the law and the public is entitled to. Well, you're right about the law because clearly Congress forcing
[42:42]this to happen put that deadline on it of midnight Eastern time and it looks like they're not going to abide by that. I mean, you you said yourself they may they may try and release more at a time
[42:53]when perhaps people are looking the other way and you're right, it's almost Christmas and you know, people will think that's what they're going to try and do, but surely there are going to be
[43:03]ramifications if they overshoot this deadline. Well, I mean, you've already had uh some Democrats talking about going to court uh to get an injunction
[43:13]to force all this to be released now uh or as soon as possible. Uh because, you know, when they they've they've been very vague about how many documents will be released today, how many documents
[43:25]may be released in the future, how long it will take. Those are all concerns. Uh again, especially for the victims, uh the pe the the the many the many women
[43:35]out there who want the truth to come out, who've been waiting for the truth to come out. And this uh this is just another for them, another delay, another
[43:45]obfiscation, another cover up for them as far as they're concerned. And so it's in the best interest, I think, uh, of of the Justice Department and the Trump administration just get it all out there
[43:55]as fast as they can with, of course, appropriate protections for personally identifiable information. >> Some of the things we're seeing, you know, are eye-catching. You know, a
[44:07]former president in a in a swimming pool with people. Some of it's just completely uh mundane and and, you know, prosaic. A stairwell, I mean, who knows what that represents. And that's the
[44:18]that's kind of an issue here, Michael, is is people slowly be piecing this stuff together to create uh more of a a picture. Never seen Bill Clinton
[44:29]reclining in a jacuzzi, it looks like. I mean, this piecing together to try and find out more of the story of what happened when Epstein was alive is is what people are going to be doing for the next, you know, days and weeks after
[44:40]this. >> Sure. I mean, that stairwell photo has no [clears throat] context to us, but to some of the victims, it may actually have some meaning. I think the most important part of of this will be as
[44:51]this information comes out well where will the victims be in terms of being able to correlate or put into context a lot of this information that'll be coming out in rather raw form
[45:02]to the extent that they to the extent that they wish to and and want to divulge that information as painful as it may be. I mean they they are the real heroes of this. they have been they have
[45:13]been keeping the pressure on non-stop uh to to get this information out there because of the fact that his his friends in high places have to to them uh been
[45:23]covering up uh the truth about this odious human being. So I think when we get to see them help us put that narrative together that's going to be
[45:34]the real truthtelling the real story as we as we want to see it. Well, with me now in the studio to analyze this breaking news is the Sun's
[45:45]chief political correspondent, Ryan Sabi, and the Politico reporter, Bethany Dawson. It's it's good to see you both. And look, this has all come out slightly late for the uh the early editions of
[45:57]the papers, Ryan. I mean, looking on their websites, it's all over the Guardian, the Times, all the others. So, you think it's going to be in the later editions, but you think it'll be across all of the front pages by the time
[46:08]tomorrow comes around? It happened at just about the right time. So, the first editions will go and then there's an hour or so, a couple of hours before um those second editions have to go um to
[46:19]the printers. But it came at that time where the the pictures came out very very early. There was enough detail um about uh there was pictures of Gile
[46:28]Maxwell and Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew there. So, there was enough to actually write a story and actually get it into the papers uh for for tomorrow. But I think one of the things they'll be looking at is the sort of where is
[46:40]Donald Trump in all of this um where is the fact that he was very very close to uh Jeffrey Epstein but doesn't actually seem to feature um in the in these
[46:50]documents. So I think the sequencing is interesting on that front and interesting from the fact from the from the White House and the Department uh for justice. Do they see him coming in
[47:01]and featuring in these documents further down the line? >> Yes. What do you think? Well, we're going to have three more tranches of these documents over the next few weeks, which wasn't really in the spirit of the
[47:11]law that was that forced this publication. Um, we had today uh Republican Congressman Thomas Massie saying that this publication today
[47:20]grossly fails um that law. It's not enough. There is so much redaction. The only redaction that was meant to happen within these documents was to protect
[47:30]the identity of those thousands of victims. No one was meant to be uh redacted in to protect the identity of any government officials or celebrities.
[47:42]Um but the sheer amount of redaction we've seen these pieces of paper uh that are just black. There is absolutely no detail. You know, the word the hasn't even made it in there. So eyebrows are
[47:53]raised as Ryan says because of just Donald Trump not featuring at all. Even though we we do know that at points there were relationships. Donald Trump said that he then kicked uh Jeffrey
[48:02]Epstein out of his club. Um but the fact that there is nothing and it doesn't quite follow the spirit of that law is making a lot of people very unhappy. >> Susie Wild said herself in her interview with Vanity Fair. I mean revealing in
[48:14]lots of ways, but he's in there and we're not seeing him certainly in in this bunch. We're going to see him at some point, aren't we? >> Yeah. And I think I wonder whether it's sort of tactics from the White House
[48:24]throw all the mud out there, a lot of the the detail out there and a lot of the pictures out there. So actually Donald Trump's involvement in this whole affair actually becomes diluted because we see all these celebrities out there
[48:35]with his MC Jagger, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross. Is it the fact that that he comes in later um down the line and he just makes out the White House can make
[48:45]out that every single you know all these big figures whether it's high society um or not that they're all linked to him um they've all been to his island they've all been on his plane they've all been
[48:57]to his parties so actually the fact that Donald Trump's been part of that as well doesn't make a blind bit of difference so I think that's the tactic that get
[49:06]him into into the picture later in the And some of the stuff we're seeing, we kind of knew about the the masses list, the the the places, the people. Some of
[49:17]it we haven't seen before. The pictures of Michael Jackson, of course, both him and Jeffrey Epstein dead now. Obviously, a picture we hadn't seen of of Andrew Mount Bsor lying across the laps of
[49:29]people who whose faces have been covered except for Gain Maxwell. EP EPS had an international network and he collected friends all over the place. And let's
[49:39]just reiterate the fact that if they may have known him, it didn't mean they they knew what he was doing or implicated any wrongdoing themselves. But we have this British connection with
[49:50]well there it is. There's Andrew with his eyes closed lying on those laps. We've seen a picture picture of Mandlesson in there as well. there's these recurring themes, these recurring
[50:01]people that keep coming popping up. >> And there'll be a lot of people holding their breath over the next few weeks as more documents come out, more photos, um you know, people who are in in the
[50:11]pictures, but also people, you know, within different governments worried about how that is going to reflect on them, about who knew what, who is kind of implicated by virtue of knowing
[50:22]people, what did they know? Um, but I think again, you know, the point was that today all of those questions were meant to be answered. That it was meant today was meant to be an opportunity for
[50:33]people to get justice, uh, for, you know, just information to be served. And it has partially in a way that kind of gives into political football on
[50:43]something that is so serious that is so damaging that I think will you know team Trump if they are doing any sort of political man maneuvering they may have thought that they did something very
[50:54]clever uh but actually I think it's going to reflect quite badly on them. We've seen Ryan, you know, Chuck Schumer, prominent Democrats, saying this really isn't in the spirit of what
[51:03]the act that Congress passed was after and they could keep going with more legal approaches to get some of this stuff unredacted.
[51:13]>> Yeah, the Department for Justice and the White House should have a very, very good reason for why all this didn't come out at the same time. It's all very well and good saying there are hundreds of thousands of documents that we all need
[51:25]to go through, but the fact is the law stated that it should have come out today. So, I think there'll be big big questions and I think the Democrats will be able to push that um in the coming days. I I've spoken to quite a few
[51:36]people lawyers who've represented victims this evening and it just whilst you go through the legality of this the he what some would say is heavy-handed
[51:46]redaction the disclaimer at the start of the website saying we may not have got this all right and if we've got it wrong let us know and that kind of thing. It it all seems a little bit slap dash.
[51:57]>> It does and these documents are of course new to the public eye. They have been in, you know, the Department of Justice has had them for a long time. Trump himself has been facing calls for a long time and US administrations
[52:08]before him to release them. To say there's a lot of documents and it's it's going to take a lot of time. They've kind of had time. You know, there have been promises to release these files for
[52:18]a long time. So, it again, it's another excuse and another reason that I think not many people are going to take very sympathetically to. M and again a lot of
[52:28]the people closer to this in the US don't hold out much hope that when we get to a couple of weeks time and we may be able to access all there is to
[52:38]access. Who knows what may or may not see the light of day that it won't necessarily change anything. We already knew what Epstein was like. We know that
[52:49]there were others involved. You think the Department of Justice may have an idea of who they are now and and should act upon it now. It doesn't fundamentally change a lot of what the rest of us understand. >> No. And I think it will be, you know,
[53:00]again, as as has been kind of a cornerstone in uh progress within this victims coming forward and saying, you know, adding details to the cases, saying things that may not have been
[53:10]included in documents to shed light on, you know, further things that have been uh concealed or redacted or or or whatever. Um but as you say, you know, whilst these are there are many
[53:22]troubling images in there, I mean, you've been all evening showing things that have been horrific. Um, again, what aside from making us unsettled and and
[53:31]reaffirming the fact that this was awful and we have all known that for a long time, the question of what's next, what will Donald Trump do, what will his administration do, what will he be
[53:41]forced to do by by the wider um US government, you know, that's something that they're they're really going to have to get to to telling us. Just final quick question, Ryan, about the appetite
[53:52]in papers like yours and others for this because on the one hand it's a lot of partisan legal fights and the rest of it and Congress and everything else, but there are British connections, there are
[54:03]British victims possibly. It's important to remind people of that. >> Yeah. No, exactly. And I think one of the things that's come out, there could be actually 1,200 um victims in all of this and there could be 20 or so um
[54:15]people who who are accused. But that there is an appetite because of that British link and I think that that people will be going through these files to find the Andrew Mountbatton um Windsor connection. Gileain Peter
[54:26]Mandlesson, Sarah Ferguson. Where do they all appear and where do they appear in the big picture? Thank you both very much indeed. Sorry we didn't have longer time to discuss this with you and the papers really haven't caught up yet, but I'm sure they will. Uh that is it from
[54:37]us uh for this evening. Slightly different uh press preview and news at 10. We'll of course have more on this throughout the night here on Sky News. The best thing about being a Sky News
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[58:36]This is Sky News. These are your latest headlines. The US Justice Department [music] releases thousands of documents relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey
[58:45]Epstein. Among the pictures, this of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor lying across the laps of five women. He [music] denies any wrongdoing.
[58:56]Also in the files, more of the rich and famous, though none are said to be implicated in Epstein's [music] crimes. The official documents are heavily
[59:06]redacted to [music] protect the victims, but the Democrats have [music] hit out at the Trump administration, accusing them of breaking the law by not
[59:16]releasing all the files in full [music] by the deadline. Hello and a very good morning to you. Thanks for joining us here on Sky News.
[59:28]The US Justice Department has released thousands of files relating to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. hours before a legal deadline. They include flight logs, a contact book, and a masseuse
[59:39]list, though many of the official documents have been heavily redacted to protect the victims. The Trump administration says more files will be made public in the coming weeks despite a deadline to release them by the end of
[59:51]December the 19th. Democrats say that's unacceptable and that the US government is in breach of federal law. Well, some of the photos that have been released include the rich and famous, but there
[1:00:02]is no suggestion any of them were involved in any wrongdoing. This photograph shows the former Prince Andrew lying across the laps of five women, their faces blanked out. Gileain
[1:00:13]Maxwell is standing behind, grinning broadly alongside another woman. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. This picture shows the former US President Bill Clinton lying back in a jacuzzi
[1:00:24]with his hands behind his head and a woman whose face has been redacted beside him. Mr. Clinton has previously said that using Epstein's plane had not been worth the years of questioning
[1:00:35]afterwards and he wished he had never met Epstein. This picture shows Lord Mandlesson, who went on to become the UK's ambassador to the United States, enjoying a birthday with Jeffrey Epste.
[1:00:46]Lord Mandlesson was forced out of his job because of his friendship with Epstein. He has repeatedly expressed his regret over his association with
[1:00:54]Epstein, saying he fell for his lies. This picture shows Epstein's remarkable pulling power with the rich and famous. Here you can see Bill Clinton, Michael
[1:01:04]Jackson, and Diana Ross. And this photo gives an indication of Epstein's disdain for his victims. The caption here reads, "Once upon a time,
[1:01:14]there was a clueless little girl above four images of young women." Well, let's go live now to Washington and our US correspondent, James Matthews. James, only a few hours since
[1:01:25]the release, but what do you make of it so far? >> Hi, Simon. Uh, I think what we have seen and it's 3 [clears throat] hours since
[1:01:35]publication of more than 300,000 files. What we've seen, I'm not sure it takes us much further forward in terms of understanding
[1:01:46]the significance of Jeffrey Epstein's associations, his contacts, and the extent to which any of these contacts were involved in criminal behavior. I
[1:01:57]mean, we've just seen, haven't we, images from these files of celebrities, none of whom, there is anything to suggest were connected to anything to do
[1:02:09]with criminality, indeed uh all deny having knowledge or involvement in any
[1:02:16]of that behavior. So in terms of how far this takes us further forward in terms of the story, who was involved and what
[1:02:26]they did, I'm not entirely sure uh we have made much progress, but it's early. There are many of these documents and it will take days to digest and to sift
[1:02:37]through what is available. I would point out a number of things in relation to the story. Today we were expected to see full publication. This was deadline day
[1:02:47]for all these documents being published by law. What we're seeing is something far short of that. The Department of Justice is saying they've put out
[1:02:58]several hundred thousand today. There will be several hundred thousand more in the coming two weeks. Strikingly, there is little to no mention of Donald Trump
[1:03:09]in this initial trunch. Uh we know he is in the files. We've been told that by his chief of staff. He's been told that by the attorney general, but stick
[1:03:19]Donald Trump into the search engine and it comes back with nothing. So, I assume we have to wait until Trunch number two at least uh before we learn about
[1:03:29]Trump's involvement. He emphatically denies knowledge or involvement in Epstein's criminality. What we do see in this initial trunch among those
[1:03:38]celebrities are uh well is one senior Democratic figure in particular, Bill Clinton, former US president. There are numerous images of him and we saw one
[1:03:50]there in a jacuzzi in the company of what appears to be a female with their identity redacted. Also a picture of him in a swimming pool with others including
[1:04:01]a woman who appears to be Galain Maxwell. So it may be that the media management strategy of the White House is to release this initial trunch, get
[1:04:11]Bill Clinton out front, have the media attention focus on the involvement of others there for giving Donald Trump a
[1:04:22]relatively soft landing when he is named in further files, releases. Who knows? There is much media management going on
[1:04:31]around uh this publication. Part of that may be a development far from Washington DC. The Americans have launched what they're calling Operation Hawkeye. They
[1:04:42]are bombing [clears throat] sites in Syria this evening or they have done the release of that. The announcement, it coincided almost exactly with
[1:04:51]publication of the file. So that will distract attention. a military attack on ISIS in retaliation for the deaths of US
[1:05:00]service people in the past few days. So, you know, there's a lot going on around the publication. Certainly a lot going
[1:05:09]on in terms of the PR strategy, but the big argument, the ongoing argument is about publication. That's a central aspect to this story today. this partial
[1:05:20]publication. The White House is disco is describing what it's done as an act of transparency. Democrat opponents are saying that this falls far short of the
[1:05:32]transparency and accountability that they had waited for and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have waited for. They expected full publication today. They
[1:05:43]are checking their legal options to challenge what they got which was partial publication. >> All very interesting and many questions still remain. James Matthews live there for us in Washington. Thank you very
[1:05:55]much indeed. And earlier our US correspondent Mark Stone gave us more of a sense of what's in the documents. >> Here is a um a scrapbook. Um I repeat
[1:06:06]what I've said number a number of times now. We don't have the context. Uh this is a scrapbook uh that appears to have been put together for Jeffrey Epstein. It is reminiscent of the birthday book
[1:06:18]that you'll remember was released a few months ago. The birthday book that Gillen Maxwell put together for Jeffrey Epstein uh which itself uh had a drawing
[1:06:28]that was said to be uh done by one Donald Trump. He denies that that drawing was him. It certainly had photographs and a birthday messages from
[1:06:38]from one Peter Mandelen which precipitated uh the the career downfall of the former British ambassador uh here. So this is a birthday book and and
[1:06:48]again many redactions uh in it, faces redacted as you can see here. Uh it's kind of creepy I have to say looking at it because it's clear that in most of
[1:06:57]the images he is photographed uh with women females women or or girls. Um this is Epstein um with a with a face mask
[1:07:08]on. Uh this we we showed a little earlier a an illustration of how some documents are entirely redacted. Uh this is the grand jury deposition, a grand
[1:07:19]jury deposition that was released. Um but every single page of the 119 pages has been completely blanked out. Um uh
[1:07:29]that is another court document. It is of Jane Doe number 103. Uh one of many of um Epstein's victims. 103 doesn't necessarily mean that there were that many victims. There may have been. We
[1:07:41]just don't know. Um it could just be another re another way of numbering uh the the victims. I think this is interesting. a photograph of um a book
[1:07:52]of the from the well-known series for Dummies. This is Massage for Dummies. The context here is that many of the of the girls who were recruited into the
[1:08:02]the warped world of Jeffrey Epstein were recruited as massuses and Virginia Jafrey once Virginia Roberts the one of his victims um who took her own life
[1:08:14]earlier on this year in Australia. She in her um book published after her death, she outlines in in extraordinary
[1:08:23]detail how she was recruited by Jeffrey Epstein and by Gellen Maxwell as a masseuse. She worked at Donald Trump's
[1:08:32]Maraago Club down in Florida. Uh Jeffrey Epstein at the time when he and Trump were associated, Trump has since said that he disassociated himself from
[1:08:43]Epstein in the years after that. But uh but Virginia Jafrey worked at that club. She was then recruited by Galen Maxwell into the world of Epstein as a masseuse
[1:08:52]uh to get trained as a masseuse. And she quickly discovered uh that she was in fact uh going to be uh one of his sex slaves frankly and in her book she she
[1:09:03]accounts that in quite some detail. uh she has been uh discredited and in fact by some and in fact in some of the the court documents you get a you get a sense of of the court arguments that
[1:09:13]took place back and forth uh with some defense lawyers for Epstein trying to discredit Virginia Jaffrey for having uh changed her story over the years and in
[1:09:24]the book she she she kind of goes into some detail of why she did that. So she is one of the few one of a few victims who has gone public and I think the
[1:09:34]sense we get from these documents is that there are others uh who have chosen to to remain anonymous and uh their faces and their names uh in these
[1:09:45]documents continue to be um hidden from public view. >> Mark Zone with that analysis. Well, earlier we spoke to Yasmin [clears throat] Meer, senior attorney at the Bloom firm which represents
[1:09:56]Epstein's victims. It's clear that the government was in a rush to make a 30-day turnaround for the release of these materials. And that is
[1:10:08]ironic to say the least that they the government was rushing for a 30-day turnaround because the government has known Jeffrey Epstein was a sex predator of children for nearly 30 years if not
[1:10:20]longer. So the fact that there is a that there is a clear rush to make a deadline for release of this information and then
[1:10:28]missing that deadline is uh it's unfortunately in line with the what the expectation was. Well, let me just come
[1:10:37]come back on that because are you saying then they've been rushing to redact this in the past 30 days and that's why they can't release it all in one go which if that is the case it suggests that
[1:10:49]perhaps they never had any intentions to release this at all had Congress not forced them to. That's certainly what it looks like it
[1:10:58]may be. And the very text of the Epstein Files Transparency Act provided those sorts of loopholes. They provided loopholes for information uh that could
[1:11:09]jeopardize an ongoing investigation. They of course provided for redactions of victim uh information, which absolutely should be the the only acceptable redactions that we should be
[1:11:21]seeing here. It does look at first glance like there are a great deal of redactions. It will have to be further explored uh whether those are indeed
[1:11:31]victims or uh children or appropriate redactions but it is extremely concerning but not entirely surprising that there is going to be an additional
[1:11:42]document production or multiple >> and we're seeing now the level of reduction. We've seen hundreds of well more than a hundred blacked out pages of
[1:11:54]uh what looks like testimony given to a grand jury for example. The kind of thing that other former federal prosecutors saying shouldn't be redacted at all. This should be in the public
[1:12:05]domain. >> Absolutely. It it it's impossible to know what has been redacted without seeing the material which is an unfortunate [clears throat] fact. But
[1:12:15]the fact is the government has has known about Jeffrey Epstein being a predator since the 1990s. And in fact, the Bloom firm today filed a lawsuit against the
[1:12:26]FBI on behalf of eight victims of Jeffrey Epstein who were abused after the FBI failed to investigate him based on credible information that they had
[1:12:35]going back to the 1990s. There there is a great deal of information here that has yet to be released and only time will tell. Is is the government going to
[1:12:45]do it? Is it going to to finally hold itself accountable and do the right thing? Well, Chuck Schumer, who is of course the Senate minority leader and a
[1:12:55]prominent Democrat, saying, and this is something I put to the previous guest, I'd be interested to get your uh response as well, saying simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of
[1:13:05]transparency and the letter of the law, which suggests something could be done about that in Congress. Again,
[1:13:15]>> it's it's possible there would there would need to likely be some bipartisan support for something like that. And absolutely, if there isn't >> which there was for the law in the first place, right? So, the act in the first
[1:13:27]place had bipartisan support. >> That's correct. But it's not quite that straightforward. There was a great deal of of infighting and there was a great deal of controversy about that. And
[1:13:38]really at the end of the day that the act passed because it's there was really there was really no other choice. >> Well earlier my colleague Matt Barbett
[1:13:49]also spoke to Molly Jong Fast a political analyst at MS now formerly MSNBC. >> So we have a couple of things with our files, right? We have these files from
[1:14:00]the DOJ and then we have these other files that the the Democrats on oversight have released which are these
[1:14:09]trunch of emails that they got and and other documents, photos, etc. from the Epstein estate. So there are a couple of
[1:14:19]sources of information coming out and then there's also emails that were gotten through FOYA from Bloomberg. So there are different sources. Here's what
[1:14:29]I would say. I think that the Trump Justice Department, which is headed by Pam Bondi, who has many, many times pledged allegiance to Trump, has sort of
[1:14:40]undermined itself. Right? There are a lot of people in this country who think that this Justice Department really does serve at the pleasure of Donald Trump, mostly because Pam Bondi has said such
[1:14:51]things. And that's why when you look at this dump of documents, you have to wonder what's redacted, what's not redacted, are things redacted for
[1:15:01]political reasons, are photos, like for example, why are there again I don't think there's any Democrat who doesn't feel or at least I would hope there
[1:15:11]aren't who doesn't feel that if Bill Clinton is involved in this, he too needs to face consequences just like any Republican who would be in these
[1:15:20]photographs. Right. But it is one has to wonder why we're seeing so many Bill Clinton photos right now and not some photos of other Republicans and and I
[1:15:31]think that is something that is going to undermine this justice department is we know that it's very Trumpheavy and has and does do you know ultimately project
[1:15:42]2025 which was this sort of template for Trumpism uh did in sort of created a framework for a DOJ that serves at the
[1:15:52]pleasure of the president. And so that it I just think it undermines the information a little bit. >> Yes. I mean, I'm sure the DOJ would say that that none of this is political from
[1:16:03]from their point of view. And ne nevertheless, we know that Donald Trump does feature because Susie Wilds, his chief of staff, stated that he does uh
[1:16:13]but denied any any wrongdoing. And again, listed anybody pictured [snorts] in these pictures. I mean, we're seeing Michael Jackson alongside Jeffrey Epstein on the right of the picture
[1:16:23]there. Anyone pictured is not accused of anything other than having been in the same place as Jeffrey Epste at a point in time. But nevertheless, Trump is meant to be here. And if you search,
[1:16:34]you're not finding awful lot on him, >> right? And again, look, you're not guilty by association. Being in the photographs is not a crime. It certainly
[1:16:44]isn't great. It doesn't show great judgment. it doesn't show great [clears throat] you know this guy uh but I do think >> but let me just come back in on that
[1:16:55]because there is no context to a lot of this >> right >> so they may have known this man when no one had any inkling of what he was doing that we obviously now know in retrospect
[1:17:05]>> for sure and there are a lot of photographs I've talked to other people um on oversight who have said that a lot of these photographs the photographs
[1:17:16]from the Epstein estate, the photograph and a lot of the information here, it didn't come with any context, right? There's no there a lot of it's not nothing is or a very I think there are
[1:17:28]some things that are dated, but a lot of things are not. And so a lot of this information we're getting is just not in context. So that does create another
[1:17:37]dynamic. For example, you know, this photo of Mc Jagger could be from any any time period. We don't and and I think though that is a real thing that you
[1:17:49]have to look at when you weed through all of this information. >> Molly Johnf there earlier speaking to my colleague Matt Barbett. Meanwhile, as the world focuses on the release of some
[1:17:59]of the Epstein files, Donald Trump has announced that the US has begun strikes on Syria. The strikes are in retaliation to an attack on US personnel last weekend in which three people were
[1:18:10]killed. A US official described it as a largecale strike that hit 70 targets across central Syria that had is infrastructure and weapons.
[1:18:21]Well, you are watching Sky News. Thanks a lot for joining us. Plenty more still to come, including we'll have more analysis as a trove of Epstein files are [music] released by the US Department of
[1:18:30]Justice. You are watching Sky News. Well, for the
[1:20:38]first time since the release of that tranch um of files from the US Justice Department, we've heard from US President Donald Trump. Let's take a quick listen as to what he had to say.
[1:20:48]>> Mr. We'll be going to Florida for a short while, mostly work. We have a lot of meetings scheduled. We're going to talk to the insurance companies and see if we can cut them way, way down. And if we
[1:21:00]can't, we just pay directly to the people. They buy their own healthcare. And I think very important today with the favorite nations because drug prices
[1:21:09]are going to be down 400, 500, 600%. If you look, we did something that nobody's been able to do. So, uh, have a good
[1:21:18]flight if you're joining me. Thank you. >> So, that was Donald Trump a few minutes
[1:21:30]ago. Obviously, not referring to anything um due to the talking about the Epstein release of files, but he will no doubt be um asked questions about that later, and we'll obviously bring you that when we get it. Let's return now to
[1:21:41]our top story which is that US Justice Department has started publishing documents relating to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Hundreds of thousands of files are being released. There are
[1:21:51]redactions to protect the victims. Some of the photos include the rich and famous, but there is no suggestion any of them were involved in any wrongdoing. Earlier, my colleague Matt Barbett spoke
[1:22:01]to the former federal prosecutor Paul Peltier. Well, it looks as though that the Department of Justice has finally begun to do what they promised to do uh at the
[1:22:12]beginning of the Trump administration. And it is it's not shocking that there's this many documents there. You know, anytime you have an investigation that was as lengthy as this one, and it went on for years and years and years, you're
[1:22:24]going to have reams and reams of documents. It looks like they've also included court pleadings in it and and videotapes and those types of things that normally you wouldn't expect to be
[1:22:35]in the files. A lot of these documents seem to be publicly filed documents. A lot of them it looks like it's the first time we're seeing. I was speaking to a
[1:22:44]Democrat uh representative Suas Subramanium a little bit early on who sits on the oversight committee. One of the Democrats on that who had concerns that
[1:22:55]they are not going to stick to what Congress ordered in releasing all the files by the midnight deadline. His argument was they've had plenty of time to do this but they're going to
[1:23:05]overshoot. As a former federal prosecutor, what kind of legal ramifications are there for that happening? Uh Su Has is on the oversight committee. He's my congressman. And the
[1:23:16]reality is um what I would do as a prosecutor is not likely to be done. Now remember, it's the Department of Justice who has the responsibility for complying
[1:23:26]with the the law. Um if they don't comply with the law, there's very little remedy that the Congress has. they can perhaps go straight to the federal
[1:23:37]courts, but usually when they do so, the Department of Justice is the one who is enforcing the law against the against themselves in this instance. So, there's
[1:23:47]really not a road map here. It it uh Congress can sort of hail in the attorney general and bring them before hearings and ask them what the problem is or the deputy attorney general, but
[1:23:57]it it is really uh um they're fairly toothless when it comes to enforcing this. I believe. >> What do you make about some of the images we're seeing thus far? You know,
[1:24:08]granted, there's hundreds of thousands of pages of information here, and it's not in it's not the entire thing, but there certainly seems to be a theme developing in that there seems to be a
[1:24:18]lot of Bill Clinton uh to begin with. Again, others saying that this has somehow been front-loaded, this has been managed. What's your take, Paul? Well,
[1:24:29]my my take is is that look, um earlier we all know that the attorney general has said that they got or admitted that they had a thousand FBI agents culling
[1:24:40]through the files. This was months and months and months ago, but it looks like their entire job at that time was to redact the names of President Trump and any other prominent Republican. Um
[1:24:51]they're going to have to undo that because Congress's law doesn't allow them to redact that. It's not surprising to me that they frontloaded it, that that this administration has
[1:25:01]front-loaded it with a lot of pictures of of Clinton. But we what we learned uh um earlier this week from the Susie Wilds interview by Vanity Fair is that
[1:25:12]Clinton never was at at the island. That Clinton um flew to Africa and a few other places with him, but he was never at the island. Um, and so what the
[1:25:22]pictures show a lot of, and I think is what's really important is the pictures show his association with men and women, Gileian Maxwell, that put him in the
[1:25:32]proximity of of men and women and and and girls, which we don't know the age of. So, I think that it's going to provide context for those people who are
[1:25:41]looking for other possible criminal violators or in some way to find out what really happened with Epstein. These men, >> I mean, we're seeing some of the most
[1:25:53]famous performers of all time in some of these photos. We got Mick Jagger in that one alongside Gile Maxwell. We just saw Paul as you were talking, Michael Jackson, uh, who has also died alongside
[1:26:04]Jeffrey Epstein, of course, who took his own life in 2019. And of course, there's no suggestion that these pictures imply anyone has done anything wrong. Many of
[1:26:14]those featured in them have denied any wrongdoing in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. But still, it's it's fascination people will have with this
[1:26:25]if they're going on the website and they're limiting how many people can go on that website at any one time. I mean, some of it's just going to be curious, fascination to see this, but of course,
[1:26:35]there's a serious business of identifying what may have happened to some of these potentially 1,200 victims. >> That That's correct. It it's very clear
[1:26:45]that Epstein had had a nexus of people in the business world and in the celebrity world. And what we're seeing is is that those that nexus both of
[1:26:55]those both of those worlds converged when it related to women, right? And sometimes younger women. And it's very clear that Trump was on the celebrity
[1:27:05]side. And he wasn't a a friend of Epstein, it appears, for any business reason. And it looks like the reason why Trump was friends with him was access to women. And Trump has all but admitted
[1:27:16]that in many many occasions. So yes, we're going to have a lot of time to look at this. There's going to be a lot of information, but I think it is going to answer some questions. Uh time will
[1:27:26]tell on what those answers will be. >> Yes. And in reality, yes. I mean, I'm looking at another image here of Bill Clinton alongside Kevin Spacy. Who knows
[1:27:38]where and when that was taken. But the images are one thing. Some of the stuff like we're seeing on the screen right now, redacted words, but I think it's just off the bottom of the screen there
[1:27:49]is, you know, I heart and it says Jeffrey Epstein beneath that for a good time call. Now look, there we go. Jeffrey E. Epstein underneath that. it. There's a you look at this knowing what
[1:28:01]he was capable of and guilty of and it really adds a sinister uh bent to it. >> It sure does and and and it makes you really understand what the victims have
[1:28:12]been saying for years and why they need justice here. >> Do you think then I mean that begs the question Paul is the big question. Do you think this could ultimately as
[1:28:22]people pour through this stuff? And as the authorities have been doing so as well that this is going to form the basis of more investigations, there could be more people. You'd hope if
[1:28:33]you're one of the victims potentially brought to justice? >> Yes. In a perfect world, yes. But I um I think that that the history of this Trump Department of Justice is that
[1:28:44]that's that's not going to happen. Now, you might have some state prosecutors uh who are very interested in following some of the leads that might come out of this, but I'm not I'm not at the least bit um fooled by the fact that the
[1:28:55]Department of Justice is not going to take uh um the leads where it takes them. They've they've shown that in the way they've handled this evidence. And look, Paul, in the buildup to this and
[1:29:05]and and let's not forget that uh President Trump himself said he would do this and then it took an act of Congress to make this happen and it still only happened in part. Do you think it's
[1:29:17]going to satisfy the likes of Marjgery Taylor Green who spectacularly fell out with the president about the release of this information? Is this going to uh
[1:29:27]reassure them? Well, well, I I think I think any release is going to be helpful to them and and to to the uh and to the victims who want this release. I I
[1:29:37]really do think it will provide some some relief for them. I think that the the larger question is is why did Trump um after promising to release it then um
[1:29:49]strive so hard to to not release it? as a matter of fact to not bring Congress into session so she they could take a vote on the law to to bring um congresswoman into the situation room to
[1:30:00]berate them uh for not voting for this. So you got to under you got to feel like there there is something behind Trump actively trying to prevent the release of these documents and I think time will
[1:30:12]tell on why he did that. Don't forget we already have the birthday book which clearly is not fake and which clearly um has Trump's signature and which clearly
[1:30:23]says that he and Epstein have secrets together and that question's never been answered by Trump either. >> Paul Peltier speaking a little earlier.
[1:30:33]Coming up next here on Sky News, we'll hear more analysis following the release of some of those Epstein [music] files. Heat. Heat. [music]
[1:31:23]Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
[1:32:38]Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
[1:33:44]You are watching Sky News. The US Justice Department has released thousands of files relating to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein hours before a legal deadline. They include flight
[1:33:54]logs, a contact book, and a masseuse list. Though many of the official documents have been heavily redacted to protect the victims, the Trump administration says more files will be made public in the coming weeks despite
[1:34:06]a deadline to release them by the end of December the 19th. Democrats say that's unacceptable and that the US government is in breach of federal law. Well, some of the photos that have been released
[1:34:17]include the rich and famous, but there is no suggestion that any of them were involved in any wrongdoing. Earlier, our US correspondent Mark Stone gave us more of a sense. Um, I repeat what I've said
[1:34:28]number a number of times now. We don't have the context. Uh, this is a scrapbook that appears to have been put together for Jeffrey Epstein. It is reminiscent of the birthday book that you'll remember was released a few
[1:34:40]months ago. The birthday book that Gen Maxwell put together for Jeffrey Epstein uh, which itself uh, had a drawing that
[1:34:48]was said to be done by one Donald Trump. He denies that that drawing was him. It certainly had photographs and a birthday messages from from one Peter Mandelen
[1:35:00]which precipitated uh the the career downfall of the former British ambassador uh here. So this is a birthday book and and again many
[1:35:09]redactions uh in it faces redacted as you can see here. Uh it's kind of creepy I have to say looking at it because it's clear that in most of the images he is
[1:35:19]photographed uh with women females women or or girls. Um this is Epstein um with a with a face mask on. Uh this we we
[1:35:30]showed a little earlier a an illustration of how some documents are entirely redacted. Uh this is the grand jury deposition a grand jury deposition
[1:35:40]that was released. Um but every single page of the 119 pages has been completely blanked out. Um uh that is
[1:35:50]another court document. It is of Jane Doe number 103. Uh one of many of um Epstein's victims. 103 doesn't necessarily mean that there were that many victims. There may have been. We
[1:36:01]just don't know. Um it could just be another re another way of numbering uh the the victims. I think this is interesting. a photograph of um a book
[1:36:12]of the from the well-known uh series for Dummies. This is Massage for Dummies. The context here is that many of the of the girls who were recruited into the
[1:36:23]the warped world of Jeffrey Epstein were recruited as massuses and Virginia Jafrey once Virginia Roberts the one of his victims um who took her own life
[1:36:35]earlier on this year in Australia. She in her um book published after her death, she outlines in in extraordinary
[1:36:44]detail how she was recruited by Jeffrey Epstein and by Gellen Maxwell as a masseuse. She worked at Donald Trump's
[1:36:53]Maraago Club down in Florida. Uh Jeffrey Epstein at the time when he and Trump were associated, Trump has since said that he disassociated himself from
[1:37:03]Epstein in the years after that. But uh but Virginia Gafrey worked at that club. She was then recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell into the world of Epstein as a masseuse
[1:37:13]uh to get trained as a masseuse. And she quickly discovered uh that she was in fact going to be uh one of his sex slaves frankly. And in her book she she
[1:37:23]accounts that in quite some detail. uh she has been uh discredited and in fact by some and in fact in some of the the court documents. You get a you get a sense of of the court arguments that
[1:37:34]took place back and forth uh with some defense lawyers for Epstein trying to discredit Virginia Jaffrey for having uh changed her story over the years and in
[1:37:45]the book she she she kind of goes into some detail of why she did that. So she is one of the few one of a few victims who has gone public and I think the
[1:37:55]sense we get from these documents is that there are others uh who have chosen to to remain anonymous and uh their faces and their names uh in these
[1:38:05]documents continue to be um hidden from public view. >> Mark Stone reporting there. Well, earlier skies Matt Barette spoke to Joshua Schiffer, a former lawyer for
[1:38:17]some of Epstein's victims. I'm not terribly surprised at the willful non-compliance from the federal government. They'd basically signaled
[1:38:27]that and that's exactly what Mr. Blanch is coming out with in in saying that yes, we're doing a a job on these and they're going to be released on our time
[1:38:37]frame regardless of what the federal law signed by President Trump uh states. Uh so now the real big question is what happens with enforcement with enforcing
[1:38:48]compliance now that we've seen the first trunch of releases. Uh the first trunch upon initial review as we've all been watching it's heavily redacted. There
[1:38:59]appears to be some strong search functions but it's uh almost celebrity oriented and it's very easy to find very large numbers of of high-profile
[1:39:09]individuals. Uh but then certain other names are being reported as being much more difficult to find. Specifically, former President Trump. There are no search results for him uh when you
[1:39:20]search in the search box. Uh while you can obviously find his name listed on things like the uh flight manifestos. So there's a big discussion happening right
[1:39:30]now about what actually was released, uh the depths of it, what has been redacted, what the method of redaction was, whether there's some logic uh
[1:39:41]involved in the redaction, and then of course what the different parties are going to do as the conflict arises about we still don't have the access demanded
[1:39:51]by the American public. And and will people know when it's all out or will you just never know that actually everything has been released? If you say there there's a management uh situation
[1:40:03]going on here, could it be the case that it doesn't all get released? I >> I don't believe I'll ever believe it's all been released. And I I think that's going to be something most people
[1:40:14]reasonably will share. Trust in the government in this kind of process is is basically at an all-time low. uh and when we have willful disobedience of
[1:40:24]very clear laws demanded by an overwhelming majority of Americans to to see that kind of betrayal uh for failing to release the documents fully uh
[1:40:36]knowing that there are so many more things unnecessarily hidden redacted I don't know very many people that will think that we will ever see everything >> so not only have they effectively missed
[1:40:47]the deadline by not publishing everything despite like you say what Bob Blanch has put in his statement to Congress saying that uh they are in compliance with the Epstein files transparency act. Of course that was
[1:40:58]Congress forcing this to happen. So they missed that deadline. A lot is uh redacted. We don't by the very nature of redaction we don't know what has been
[1:41:08]redacted and whether and what the reasons are necessarily uh behind that redaction. Uh and and you also don't know if it's all out. So I is this going to provide
[1:41:20]what plenty of the people you previously represented want to see, which is something for the victims to bring about justice. >> No, the the people that I've already
[1:41:32]been in contact with uh were expecting to be disappointed. Uh that was a very reasonable expectation knowing how the the federal government
[1:41:42]treats this issue. uh watching how it has been curated with the release uh the flip-flop from the president over uh wanting to share, not wanting to share, then wanting to share, calling the
[1:41:53]issues a hoax. Uh that's a tough swallow for uh anybody personally exposed to the number of victims and and what they went through. In which case, because we've seen
[1:42:04]Democrats on the oversight committee releasing their own materials which they'd subpoenaed from the Epstein estate, you're saying that you think
[1:42:13]this release is being managed uh in line with what the Trump administration would prefer. So, has it just become too much
[1:42:23]of a political football between Democrat Democrats and Republicans for the victims and the importance of what they've been through to be taken seriously enough?
[1:42:33]>> Uh, as easy as it is to fall into the it's a it's a straightforward partisan issue, I I think it's more broad than that. uh because there was significant cooperation and bridge building between
[1:42:45]the various parts of the spectrum here in the United States when it comes to this particular case and that's because the who these victims are. These are the young daughters that every person here
[1:42:57]sees are our and our own family. It it that betrayal stretches so wide and so deep. I believe it surprised everybody. And I don't believe that constituency is
[1:43:08]going to rest. I think they're going to remain focused on getting as much truth out there as possible. >> Yes. You interesting point on on it not
[1:43:19]being partisan because as you say, we speaking to Democrats on the oversight committee wanted more of this to come out. We obviously know all about Marjorie Taylor Green, a very prominent
[1:43:29]Republican, prominent MAGA movement uh member who fell out with uh the president over the release of these files as well. is it's not just falling
[1:43:38]down partisan lines. From your point of view and what you want to see, what do you think is the best case scenario? Now, >> the best case scenario is more people
[1:43:48]interested in getting to what truth can be found. And a lot of the truth can only be found after you compare and contrast the different pieces of evidence we do have and do some pretty
[1:44:00]deep detective work because the the facts aren't plain. They're going to need to be put together over time to then reveal what people are actively
[1:44:10]hiding as to what that is. I It's impossible to predict. You think you've seen everything, but you haven't. [laughter] >> I'll come I'll just finish off with that in a second, but before I do, Joshua, in
[1:44:22]terms of the number of victims, now people have talked about it being more than a thousand for a little while. It certainly seems that in his statement or letter to Congress, Todd Blanch is
[1:44:33]talking about 1,200 uh possible victims. Does that tally with your understanding? >> Yes, there there's a specifically unknown but kind of guesstimated amount.
[1:44:44]There were the victims that participated in the victim's compensation fund and there are some more specific numbers about that. But then, as has been alleged and I I believe to be true, there have been side deals cut that were
[1:44:54]just non-public people that popped up in certain contexts but not in others. There were so many competing issues for these victims depending on what happened
[1:45:05]when, and where their lives are now. I don't believe we will ever get a full list of who those victims are. And my final question is I wonder if some of those people who've been
[1:45:16]subjected to awful things will see some of the imagery in this that looks inconsequential to our eyes, a stairwell
[1:45:28]or a place, you know, or a a flight manifest or whatever it happens to be and they will know exactly what that is and that will be useful in terms of a subsequent investigation. Yes. Uh
[1:45:39]refresh refreshment of recollection is one of the most powerful tools we lawyers use in court. I can refresh your recollection with anything. Uh we teach it with I can do it with a piece of ham.
[1:45:50]Uh you can as long as it helps you remember, go back there. These media pieces may not have been seen by anyone outside of the immediate Epstein circle
[1:46:00]in literally over a decade. So reminding these young people uh what they went through could spur additional memories.
[1:46:10]>> Joshua Schiffer speaking there a short while ago. You are watching Sky News. Plenty more still to come, including our coverage of the Epstein files that have
[1:46:18]been released so far. Do stay tuned. >> What's the best thing about being a Sky
[1:46:27]News presenter? We've done the work and the reading so you don't have to. Being a Sky News
[1:46:37]presenter. Hello and welcome Westminster, the heart of British politics. I'm so sorry about what happened to you. So what on earth is going on? >> It's not true.
[1:46:47]>> Can I tell you what I think is really unusual? >> Mornings with Reyn Frost. Let's crack on. Let's get started. This is how you travel when the mafia
[1:46:59]wants to kill you. >> He's almost given [music] up his own freedom. But that's the price he's willing to pay. Here, they don't just arrest and dranket mafia members. They
[1:47:10]also live among them. Time after time, I've seen the devastating impact of extreme weather and climate change. >> We don't have much snow at the moment. They've had [music] a warm spring, an
[1:47:22]exceptionally hot summer, and that means they're expecting to lose more than three times the amount of ice than they usually do. >> Flames are still forcing people from
[1:47:32]their homes and leaving many questioning their futures. >> Here was my life. We have nothing. I can't say anything. It's so sad. >> This disaster is testing the resolve of
[1:47:43]everyone on this island. The only way out now is by boat. Everything you see is devastated and the
[1:47:53]misery being felt by people living here is repeated in towns and villages across central Europe. Sky News get the full story first.
[1:48:04]>> Turkey is burying its dead. >> The loss is profound. Whole families died in this collapse. Generations wiped
[1:48:15][music] out. The violence has penetrated the heart of the city rather than being contained to the estates [music] around the edge and that speaks to the level of anger being
[1:48:26]felt here. In Sweden, police have seized a lethal stash. This is just a small sample of the deadly arsenal taken off the streets. This is an example of an
[1:48:37]advert really. [music] Anyone of any age could say I'll do that for a million crown and then have to go and shoot someone. Yes, >> I'm Siobhan Robbins, Sky [music] Europe
[1:48:46]correspondent based here in Berlin. You are watching Sky News. Well, let's
[1:48:56]get more reaction now to our top story that the US Justice Department has released thousands of files relating to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein hours before that legal deadline. Well, I'm
[1:49:07]joined now by the Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett. Thanks for joining us, Matthew. a few hours since the release. Maybe you've had some time to digest um some of those files. What are your initial thoughts?
[1:49:18]>> Yes, I mean, as you mentioned, this is a Friday evening um ahead of the holidays and now the Justice Department um has released just a trove of of documents um and and probably what is catching most
[1:49:29]people's eyes uh pictures. Um it seems as if um much of this is surrounding um Bill Clinton as well as numerous
[1:49:39]celebrities from MC Jagger to Michael Jackson, Diana Ross even pictured many pictures around of Epstein. Um candid photos, photos in pools. Um this seems
[1:49:50]to be catching most people's eyes again the photographs um that we have that have just been released. Um and it appears as if we are probably no closer
[1:50:00]to the truth or most importantly for justice for the hundreds if not thousands of girls um around the legitimate questions of who is Jeffrey Epstein, how did he amass such fortune
[1:50:10]and influence um and around the horrific crimes he committed um you know who were the other people that either participated and or enabled. Right now,
[1:50:19]it appears as if much of this, again, seems to be coming from the Justice Department, potentially on partisan lenses. Um, again, the pictures of Bill
[1:50:30]Clinton, this seems to be an attempt from the White House to make this uh take this off of Donald Trump, perhaps to put this on the former president. Um,
[1:50:40]and again, remembering that pictures are not incriminating, pictures do not make allegations. Um but again some legitimate questions seem to con seem to remain.
[1:50:51]>> Yeah. Important of course to um to say that yeah the pictures don't suggest any um wrongdoing. But it is interesting isn't it that there are lots of pictures of Bill Clinton, none of Donald Trump. Um what do you make of the Trump
[1:51:01]administration's management of this whole process? >> Very very hard to say. Again, this seemed to be originate from um you know, MAGA, from uh many of the president's
[1:51:13]allies, members of his family, um members of the administration. You're thinking the head of the FBI, the attorney general, the vice president, even some of the um of the president's
[1:51:23]family. Um this was questioning um the official line, questioning what our government was telling us as the truth. um and a a a very deep sentiment um
[1:51:34]around such an emotionally charged horrific crime. The notion that that uh elites around the world um can commit crimes, abuse girls and get away with
[1:51:44]this. Um that was the inception. Um this was uh again perpetuated in large part by MAGA but then it became a deeply
[1:51:53]deeply political issue. um the president's um once returning to power, hesitance around talking about this, around releasing quoteunquote releasing
[1:52:03]these files. We had an act of Congress. Let's remember our Congress um you know could not agree to even keep the government functioning yet in a incredibly bipartisan um and quick
[1:52:14]fashion voted to release these files. um we now have them and after the Justice Department has gone through them, it appears as if again much of this will
[1:52:24]fan uh the intrigue um potentially uh further divide around party partisan lines. Yet, I'm not sure that we have
[1:52:35]any um you know closer uh to answers around the legitimate questions of justice and transparency um around the entire situation. You talked about the
[1:52:47]bipartisaness of those um two parties coming together to make sure these were files were released. Donald Trump famously obviously U-turned a few weeks ago um after much of the MAGA faithful
[1:52:57]and the Republican party criticized not releasing the files. Where do you think this leaves um the Republican party itself? Is there still a split there?
[1:53:07]>> Unclear. uh let's remember that this entire uh I will call issue um is is atypical uh potentially asymmetric and
[1:53:16]maybe even apolitical. This is not ideology. This is not a policy position. This does not affect the dayto-day life of Americans. Um arguably it goes
[1:53:27]deeper. It is a crisis of confidence, of government, of transparency and again the notion of justice that people can commit horrible, horrible crimes against
[1:53:38]innocent girls and get away with it. Questions remain how this happened, who else uh participated. Um the notion of truth and justice, I think, is a feeling
[1:53:48]that will continue on and and and and um um will will lead to even more questions. But right now, the politicization of this again, uh both
[1:54:00]parties now trying to cast a finger at either a current or former president uh laying blame uh along uh political party lines um will probably increase yet not
[1:54:12]bring us any closer to any resolution. >> Yeah. And it's important obviously that we don't forget the victims um in all of this. You talk about justice. Um there's there seems to be quite a lot of anger um from a few quarters that the Justice
[1:54:23]Department still hasn't released all of the files um despite there being a law to do so. >> Yes. Um in one sense it is deeply gravely concerning um that they have not
[1:54:35]released everything um and and that what it appears to be um is certainly potentially a focus on Bill Clinton. Conversely, this is um you know, not
[1:54:46]traditionally done in the American justice system. And to just release files or and pictures um part of the problem is is that it, you know,
[1:54:56]arguably cast um doubt or or or cast a shadow on very innocent people who uh may have associated with Jeffrey Epstein years prior, decades prior to certainly
[1:55:07]any allegations um that even came out, any any court proceedings. Um so this is part of why this is such a very tricky um issue uh to get to the bottom of. Um
[1:55:18]so it does take time as you just said Simon most importantly um are the victims protecting their privacy ensuring that they are not exposed
[1:55:28]retraumatized as your uh earlier guest said um yet trying again to bring answers to the American public around truth transparency and justice. >> That's all we got time for. Matthew,
[1:55:39]thank you very much indeed.