By Brad Heath, Julia Harte and Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Friday published millions of new files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including emails that showed Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, apparently visited Epstein’s private island for lunch years after he claimed to have cut off ties.
In another set of emails, billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk asked whether Epstein was planning any parties but declined an invitation to visit the island.
In a reflection of the elite circles Epstein inhabited, the documents included mentions of many prominent figures in politics, business and entertainment, including Trump himself, who was friends with Epstein years before his crimes came to light.
For instance, Kevin Warsh, whom Trump nominated on Friday to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, appeared in an email from a publicist to Epstein listing 43 people, including celebrities such as Martha Stewart, headed to a Christmas gathering. It was not clear whether Warsh knew Epstein or why Epstein was sent the note, and Warsh did not immediately comment.
Previous document releases have renewed scrutiny of Epstein’s relationships with other prominent people, including former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who have denied wrongdoing and said they regret their association with the late financier.
Todd Blanche, the U.S. deputy attorney general, said Friday’s batch of documents marked the end of the Trump administration’s planned releases under a law calling for all Epstein-related files to be made public. The new cache includes more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, he said at a press conference.
Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. But the scandal has dogged him for months, in part because he promised to release the files during his 2024 presidential campaign, then reneged after taking office.
The newly published files included hundreds of documents that mention Trump, many of which were collections of media reports.
TRUMP REFERENCES
One file details what appeared to be internal emails by federal investigators looking into salacious accusations involving the president and Epstein. The emails, all from August 2025, give no indication that any claims had been substantiated, and investigators noted several of the accusers were deemed not credible.
The Justice Department said in a press release that some of the documents contained untrue and sensationalist claims against Trump.
Another message, whose sender and recipient were both redacted, reads, “What does JE think of going to Mar-a-Lago after xmas instead of his island?” referring to Trump’s Florida club. The message is from 2012, years after Trump said the two men had stopped socializing.
The files also included what appeared to be a 2002 email from Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner and co-conspirator, about a New York Magazine piece on Epstein.
“Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture,” the email says. “Give me a call when you are back in NY.”
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking a minor and other charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.
LUTNICK, MUSK MESSAGES INCLUDED IN FILES
Emails show Epstein and Lutnick made plans to meet for lunch on December 23, 2012, on Epstein’s Caribbean island, Little Saint James. That morning, Lutnick’s wife wrote to Epstein’s secretary, “We are heading towards you from St. Thomas” and asked where to anchor.
A day later, Epstein’s assistant sent Lutnick a follow-up note from Epstein that read in part, “Nice seeing you.”
In November 2015, Epstein’s assistant forwarded him an invitation from Lutnick to a fundraiser at his financial firm for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton would go on to lose to Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Campaign finance records showed Lutnick donated $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign, the maximum allowed by law at that time.
The emails appeared to contradict Lutnick’s comments on a podcast last year. Lutnick said Epstein, his next-door neighbor at the time, invited him and his wife around 2005 to tour Epstein’s townhome, where the financier made a sexually suggestive comment about a massage table he had set up. Lutnick said he vowed to “never be in a room” with Epstein again.
A Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement that Lutnick had “limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.”
MUSK SEEKS PARTIES
In another email exchange, Epstein and Musk discussed an invitation from Epstein to visit his island.
“The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for,” Musk wrote Epstein on Christmas Day in 2012. Musk said he had been “working to the edge of sanity” and asked Epstein if he had “any parties planned.”
Epstein replied that he understood Musk turning down the invitation, adding that “the ratio on my island” might make Musk’s female companion uncomfortable, without elaborating further.
A few days later, Musk invited Epstein to join him and others for drinks in “St. Bart’s,” presumably the Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy, but it is unclear if the two met there.
Musk responded on Saturday on his X social media platform that he had been “well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name.”
“No one pushed harder than me to have the Epstein files released and I’m glad that has finally happened,” Musk wrote. “I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express.’”
DEMOCRATS SKEPTICAL
The documents were released weeks after the December 19 deadline mandated by Congress, which passed a bipartisan law requiring the release of the Epstein files despite months of effort by Trump to block it.
Many were heavily redacted, which Blanche said was done to protect victims or ongoing investigations in accordance with the law’s permitted exceptions. One 82-page document, for instance, had all but one page blacked out.
Democrats immediately questioned whether the administration had provided all relevant material, noting that the Justice Department had identified 6 million potentially responsive pages but released only 3.5 million.
Epstein was found hanged in his jail cell in 2019. While his death was ruled a suicide, it has engendered years of conspiracy theories, some of which Trump himself amplified to his own supporters during his 2024 campaign.
(Reporting by Brad Heath and Andrew Goudsward in Washington and Julia Harte in New York; Additional reporting by Jason Lange, Richard Cowan, Jonathan Stempel, Bhargav Acharya, Susan Heavey, Ryan Jones and Katharine Jackson; Additional reporting by Rhea Rose Abraham; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
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