Former President Bill Clinton issued a statement Friday following his appearance in the first batch of Justice Department records linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, accusing the Trump administration of deflecting scrutiny.
Numerous photographs of Clinton, a Democrat, surfaced within thousands of Epstein-related documents made public by the U.S. Department of Justice. The images include Clinton on a private aircraft, with one photograph revealing a female—her face redacted—sitting on his lap.
Additional photos show Clinton at a pool alongside Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell and another unidentified individual, as well as in a hot tub with a woman whose identity was similarly obscured.
The Department of Justice was instructed to redact only images featuring minors or Epstein victims; however, Clinton challenged this through a spokesperson, asserting the Epstein investigation “isn’t about Bill Clinton.”
“The White House hasn’t been concealing these files for months merely to dump them on Friday to shield Bill Clinton,” said spokesperson Angel Ureña. “This is about protecting themselves from what comes next—or what they’ll attempt to hide forever.”
Ureña added: “There are two groups here. The first group knew nothing and severed ties with Epstein before his crimes became known. The second group continued relationships afterward. We belong to the first. No amount of delay by those in the second group will change that.”
This week’s release by the DOJ marked the initial documents disclosed under a law signed last month by President Donald Trump. Earlier, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche indicated the records would encompass “several hundred thousand” files, with more to follow in subsequent weeks.
However, Blanche’s schedule conflicts with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandated that all DOJ-held records be released by Friday—with exceptions limited to survivors’ personal information and other protected categories.
The law requires public access to records from criminal investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, his convicted accomplice, as well as flight logs, travel details, and internal communications related to Epstein’s case and his federal imprisonment in 2019.
