The Trump administration on Sunday defended its decision to remove photos from its online collection of newly released Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, including one showing President Donald Trump with unidentified women.
Several photos initially included in Friday’s release were later removed from the Justice Department’s website. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said they were taken down “because a judge in New York has ordered us to listen to any victim or victim rights group if they have any concerns about the material that we’re putting up.” He added that to suggest the move had anything to do with Trump “is laughable.”
“We learned after releasing that photograph that there were concerns about those women and the fact that we had put that photo up,” Blanche said. “So we pulled that photo down. It has nothing to do with President Trump.”
When asked if the photo will be put back up, Blanche said the photo with Trump will eventually be back on the DOJ’s website, though possibly with redactions related to victims. The photo was restored to the site Sunday afternoon.
Trump has repeatedly accused Democrats of orchestrating a “hoax” with the Epstein files. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have separately released documents from their own investigation into Epstein that show several communications between Trump and Epstein.
Friday’s release by the DOJ came after last month’s passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the bipartisan legislation co-authored by Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky. The legislation required the DOJ to publicly release all of its unclassified documents related to Epstein within 30 days, and survivors have criticized the incomplete release.
On Sunday, Khanna and Massie announced that they are planning to bring inherent contempt proceedings against Attorney General Pam Bondi for only partially releasing the Epstein files.
“Massie & I are different,” Khanna said on X. “We do not just do memes or speeches. We take action to fight a corrupt system.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.