A day after the US Justice Department released a portion of the thousands of heavily redacted documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, at least 16 files reportedly disappeared from the public webpage on Saturday.
The missing files included a photograph showing President Donald Trump, even as the government has yet to provide any explanation.
According to an Associated Press report, the files that disappeared also included images of paintings depicting nude women and one showing a series of photographs displayed along a credenza and inside drawers. One of the photos featured Trump alongside Epstein, Melania Trump, and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The development has drawn the ire of Democrats, who had already criticized the Trump administration over the partial release of the documents.
US media reports claimed that the initial disclosure offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years. It also omitted some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.
The released documents made scant reference to Trump but extensively featured Democratic former President Bill Clinton. Most of the scattered references to Trump, or images of him, were already in the public domain.
The documents were released a month after Trump signed a bill on November 19 mandating the release of most of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein within 30 days.