Takeaways from release of Epstein files
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday released a new cache of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Epstein files have been a significant political problem for President Donald Trump, with many of his supporters and Republicans in Congress demanding their release.
It remains to be seen if this partial release will satisfy Trump's critics on the issue.
The big question before the document release was: How prominently would Trump feature in them?
He and Epstein were friends and socialized frequently in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump says they had a falling out in the mid-2000s, before Epstein's first conviction in 2008.
Friday's document dump of government files containing hundreds of thousands of pages was therefore notable for the lack of mentions oTrump.
The Justice Department said more documents will be released over the next two weeks. An initial examination of the cache by Reuters found scant photos of Trump or any mentions of him in documents.
There was a single photo of Epstein appearing to hold a check with Trump's name on it, and a separate photo taken inside Epstein's Manhattan townhouse where a copy of Trump's 1997 book, 'Trump: The Art of the Comeback', was tucked inside a bookshelf.
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