Department of Justice Robert F. Kennedy on December 19, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harnick/Getty Images
Hide caption
Toggle caption
Andrew Harnick/Getty Images
The Justice Department began releasing files related to the life, death and criminal investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday. The files continued to be posted on the Epstein Library website on Saturday.
But NPR identified more than a dozen files released by the Justice Department on Friday that were no longer available Saturday afternoon, including one that showed a photo of President Trump on a desk among several other photos. The deleted files also show various artworks, including those containing nudity.
attic Websitethe Department of Justice directs people to report any files that should not be published by notifying the agency using a designated email address. A statement at the top of each page of the site read: “In light of the deadline set by Congress, all reasonable efforts have been made to review and redact personal information relating to victims and other individuals, and to protect sensitive materials from disclosure.”
However, the Department of Justice acknowledged that “due to the volume of information contained, this site may contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personal information or other sensitive content, to include matters of a sexual nature.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the files were not available.
This illustration taken in Washington, D.C. on December 19, 2025 shows a court document after the Justice Department began releasing long-awaited records from the investigation into the politically explosive case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandel and/AFP
Hide caption
Toggle caption
Mandel and/AFP
After the initial release of the files, some members of Congress raised concerns about what was missing from the data sets.
“There are powerful men and bankers and politicians that we know who are survivors — they’ve told us that — who were at these parties where there were a lot of young women, and a few of them were underage, and these powerful men knew about it, and they didn’t say anything,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told NPR. “They should at least be held accountable publicly.”
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who co-sponsored the Epstein Transparency Act in the House with Khanna, criticized the redactions.
Post on X, He said The release “flagrantly fails to comply with the spirit and letter of the law.” Him too to caution “A future Department of Justice could condemn the current one [Attorney General] And others” for not properly publishing all the files that the law required them to publish.
Aside from the photo, which is no longer available for download, Trump’s name and photo rarely appear in the new documents available. There are some photos of him with women, a framed photo of Epstein, and a retouched woman with an oversized check for $22,500 signed by Trump.
Although Trump was not mentioned much this time around, he was a recurring subject of emails and text messages in another slide of the Epstein dossier released by the House Democratic Oversight Committee — with more than a thousand different mentions — though primarily the subject of Epstein’s near-obsession with his presidency, with the latter presenting himself as a whisperer of sorts to his powerful aides.
NPR’s Stephen Fowler Contributed to reports.