Trump, Howard Lutnick, Steve Tisch in latest DOJ release

The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

Congressional Democrats, who have been key to pushing for the release of case files on Epstein, are arguing that Friday’s release is only about half of the files that have been collected.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law enacted after months of public and political pressure, requires the government to open its files on the convicted sex offender as well as his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

Here’s the latest:

Epstein appears to have tried to connect the co-owner of the New York Giants with women Steve Tisch, the co-owner of the football team, emailed back and forth with Epstein several times in 2013, and in some they referenced women.

In one exchange, Tisch wrote to Epstein that he had lunch with one of Epstein’s assistant’s friends — “very sweet girl” — and asked if the financier knew anything about her.

“no, but i will ask,” said Epstein, before inquiring if Tisch had contacted another woman, crudely describing her physical features.

In another email exchange, Tisch asked Epstein, “Is there somebody in NY you want me to meet?” Epstein’s reply was redacted, but in a later email he said “tahitian speaks mostly french, exotic.”

“Working girl?” asked Tisch in a response similar to characterizations the two appeared to use in describing women, including in one email where Tisch asks “pro or civilian?”

“I am happy to have you as a new but obviosly shared interest friend,” wrote Epstein.

In an emailed statement, Tisch said that he had a “brief association” where they emailed about “adult women” and other topics, saying that he never took Epstein up on invitations or visited his island.

“As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with,” said Tisch.

That was after multiple underage girls came forward and told police and FBI agents that they had been paid to give him sexualized massages.

Ultimately, the U.S. attorney in Miami at the time, Alexander Acosta, signed off on a deal that let Epstein avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty instead to a state charge of soliciting prostitution from someone under age 18 and got an 18-month jail sentence.

One of the documents released Friday, though, was a draft indictment from that period that would have brought federal charges against not just Epstein but three other people who worked for him as personal assistants. The names of those people were blacked out in the Justice Department’s records.

The draft indictment said those people were part of a conspiracy to recruit underage girls to perform lewd acts with Epstein, summon them to his house by phone, and then to pay them for their services.

They included emails in which Epstein and others shared news articles about President Donald Trump, commented on his policies or his politics, or gossiped about him and his family.

Among the records was a spreadsheet, created just last August, summarizing calls that had been made to the FBI’s National Threat Operation Center or to a hotline set by prosecutors from people claiming to have some knowledge of wrongdoing by Trump.

That document included a range of uncorroborated stories involving many different celebrities, and somewhat fantastical scenarios, occasionally with notations indicating what follow-up, if any, was done by agents.

Among the documents released Friday was a 58-page manual…