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Topics: Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, US News, Politics, Weird
Olivia Burke
Topics: Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, US News, Politics, Weird
More than a dozen files released by the US Justice Department in relation to Jeffrey Epstein have now disappeared.
A photo of President Donald Trump is among the now-missing documents, prompting politicians to accuse the White House of orchestrating a 'cover up'.
People have been pouring over the latest dump of court records, footage and images since they were released on Friday (19 December) - but now, some have them have vanished. At least 16 files which were uploaded to the US Department of Justice website are no longer available to view.
Questions about 'transparency' are now being raised, as one of the images which has seemingly been removed included President Trump.
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The photograph in question lies inside of an open drawer alongside various other snaps and paperwork, and appears to show the commander-in-chief, 79, with his wife Melania, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Other images - including some which showed paintings of nude women - have also disappeared.
The Justice Department didn't directly address the matter, but said in a post on X on Saturday (20 December): "Photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information."
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee also took to social media in the search of answers.
The post read: "This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release. AG Bondi, is this true?
"What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public."
Another said: "This is a White House Cover-Up."
The files related to convicted sex offender Epstein were released a month after the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed, but a lot of them are heavily redacted.
New York senator Chuck Schumer said what we've seen so far is 'just a fraction of the whole body of evidence', while saying that sharing pages of blacked out text 'violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law'.
Reacting to the removal of some of the files, Schumer said in a post on X: "This could be one of the biggest cover ups in American history."
Congresswoman Shontel Brown agreed, as she said in her own post: "Trump and his lackeys have proven one thing - they're absolutely committed to the coverup."
There's still more Epstein files to come, as the Justice Department said the records will be released on a rolling basis. This has also frustrated politicians, given that Congress ordered that all of the files were to be released on Friday.
"They are absolutely in violation of the law, they just admitted they were in violation of the law," Democrat Suhas Subramanyam, from the US House oversight committee, said.
“The law said they needed to release everything by today. Not starting today, not part of it today, all of it by today. There’s no excuse for this. They are in violation of the law and we will pursue every possible legal avenue."