For days, Attorney General Pam Bondi had talked about releasing the “Epstein files,” supposedly secret documents the federal government has on some of the powerful men who were in the orbit of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
But the roughly 200 pages of documents that Ms. Bondi released on Thursday contained little new information pointing to wrongdoing by anyone other than Mr. Epstein, a registered sex offender who died in jail. The document dump largely consisted of flight logs for Mr. Epstein’s planes — long ago made public — and contact information for hundreds of associates, along with brief descriptions of items found at his residences.
The release was billed as a gesture ushering in a new era of transparency at the Justice Department. But the hyped first release of documents (which Ms. Bondi teased as “breaking news” in a Fox News appearance on Wednesday night) appeared to be mostly political theater. Its confusing daylong rollout even spun off a few new conspiracy theories among some Trump supporters, who view the Epstein investigation as a fountainhead for other conspiracies.
On Thursday afternoon, Ms. Bondi and Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I., offered a sneak preview of the documents to several conservative influencers, some of whom emerged from the West Wing waving chunky white binders with the label “The Epstein Files: Phase I.” One of them later called it an “interesting souvenir.”
But by midafternoon, the Justice Department had not posted the contents. And Ms. Bondi was drawing criticism on social media from those who had taken her at her word the night before. The conservative personality Glenn Beck posted on X: “The Epstein files are a total joke,” and asked, “Who is subverting POTUS?”
Ms. Bondi responded by promising more documents to come. Later, she said that a “source” in the F.B.I. field office in New York City had told her the bureau withheld “thousands” of previously unknown pages of Epstein-related documents and that she was determined to get them, according to a letter her spokesman provided to reporters.
The documents were released late on Thursday, along with a statement from Mr. Patel that said: “If there are gaps, we will find them. If records have been hidden, we will uncover them.”
Still, some Republicans in Congress took to X to voice displeasure with the information released by Ms. Bondi.
“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment. GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!” wrote Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida.
Mr. Epstein, a college dropout and self-proclaimed financial whiz, killed himself in August 2019 — one month after his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Mr. Epstein is believed to have sexually abused more than 200 teenage girls and young women over three decades. During that time, he amassed a fortune worth $600 million and befriended some of the most powerful and famous people in the world.
Included in the documents, which were finally posted on Thursday night, was an entirely redacted list of 254 people described as masseuses.
Many of the boldface names associated with Mr. Epstein first came to light in 2015 when Gawker published his so-called black book of names, numbers and addresses.
That list includes the retail magnate Leslie Wexner, the private equity mogul Leon Black, the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and the venture capitalist Reid Hoffman. All of those men have said they regretted their association with Mr. Epstein.
It has also long been known that President Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of Britain and celebrities including Kevin Spacey and Naomi Campbell were friendly with Mr. Epstein at one time, and some traveled on Mr. Epstein’s private planes, according to previously released flight logs, trial testimony and court filings.
The most notable flight log was a 118-page document produced during the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, one of Mr. Epstein’s longtime associates and a former girlfriend. She was convicted in 2021 on charges that she aided Mr. Epstein in his sex-trafficking activities.
While Justice Department leaders claimed the papers released on Thursday were “declassified,” none of them had classification markings — or declassification markings.
The document release on Thursday was a moment that said much about the Trump administration. The two most powerful law enforcement officials in the country, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel, who are responsible for overseeing vital national security and criminal investigations, chose to prioritize a long-concluded case to assuage conservative media and the obsessive core of Trump supporters who see the case as nefarious unfinished business.
For years, conspiracy theorists have believed there is a grand plot by the government to conceal not only the cause of Mr. Epstein’s death but the names of powerful men who also abused some of the victims, who included teenage girls and women.
On right-wing media platforms like Fox News and Mr. Trump’s own service, Truth Social, there long has been talk of an “Epstein client list” that details the names of men for whom Mr. Epstein procured women. But there has never been a reference to any “client list” in any of the civil litigation brought by victims.
Before joining the Trump administration, Ms. Bondi fueled some of that speculation herself by talking in media interviews about the government’s refusal to release Epstein documents.
The F.B.I. also has refused to release some documents requested by lawyers for victims and the news media. In October, the F.B.I. rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The New York Times seeking a list of all items seized by federal agents when they searched Mr. Epstein’s residences in New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands after his July 2019 arrest.
The documents released by Ms. Bondi may include partial descriptions of some of those items seized by federal agents. Under the heading “evidence list,” there are brief descriptions of items like “VHS tape,” “envelope containing 4 CDs” and “photo depicting two girls.”
More than two dozen of Mr. Epstein’s victims have joined a lawsuit charging the F.B.I. with mishandling earlier investigations into his activities and ignoring complaints filed by victims.
Jordan Merson, whose law firm is handling that lawsuit, said that Ms. Bondi had taken a good first step and that he hoped this “will lead to her taking seriously the pain of the victims” who were suing the F.B.I.
Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.
