Trump’s name appears in latest release of Epstein files

The Justice Department has now released a big new batch of documents in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And these include new details about Epstein's one-time friendship with President Trump. Look, there is a lot to go through. We said it's like more than 10,000 pages. So we are digging through this.

But this is what is seen so far. In a 2020 email, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote that Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet, quote, more times than previously has been reported, at least eight times, between 1993 and 96. And on a flight in 1993, according to the email, there was just three passengers, Trump, Epstein, and what's described as a 20-year-old woman. Being mentioned in a trove of investigatory documents does not demonstrate

criminal wrongdoing. A reminder and Trump has not been accused of being involved in Epstein's crimes. On Monday, the president did seem dismayed that the release of any and all of these files, though, could harm the reputations of individuals. He said, quote, innocently met Epstein. Now, remember, he is the man they also signed into law last month a measure requiring the Justice Department

to do just this.

Release the files.

A lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein. But they're in a picture with him because he was at a party and you ruin the reputation of somebody.

As we speak, CNN has a team working through the documents just released. We are gonna bring you the findings as they come in. CNN's Caitlin Polans is live in Washington this morning. A lot to work through and we're just getting started.

Caitlin, what do you have so far? We're just getting started, but the headline here is quite clear. Donald Trump is all over these documents. In that first trove that the Justice Department released on Friday, there were just a few very scant mentions of Trump, including in a picture collected with a bunch of other pictures. In this one, there is already one very illuminating email that was sent during the first

presidency of Donald Trump while prosecutors in the Southern District of New York were working on the case against Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. This is after Epstein's death. And one of those prosecutors writes, I'm going to read from this letter because it is what was new to the prosecutors at the time and what is new to us now, receiving these documents now in the public sphere from the Justice Department, the prosecutor, unnamed,

an assistant U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York, wrote on January 8th of 2020, the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported or that we were aware. That's the Justice Department in 2020, including during the period we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case.

On one flight in 1993, Donald Trump and Epstein are the only two passengers listed. On another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and a then 20-year-old. On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case. And then the assistant US attorney concludes this email

by telling his or her supervisors or superiors in the Justice Department didn't want any of this to be a surprise down the road. That's a direct quote. Now Donald Trump, he has not commented yet on this particular revelation in the Epstein files coming out overnight and this morning that we are now surfacing for you here, but Donald Trump has downplayed his relationship with Epstein in the past. And of course, this is something that is documenting his connection to Epstein,

traveling on that private plane in the 90s. So many years ago, Kate. But Trump even yesterday was saying that everyone was friendly with Epstein. He was all over Palm Beach. And Ghislaine Maxwell, this past year, has said in an interview with the Justice Department talking about Trump that she never saw him do anything that wasn't gentlemanly,

that was any sort of impropriety at all. That said, this is a document that shows the possibility of Donald Trump having an intersection with Ghislaine Maxwell and the criminal case against her in which she was convicted for sex trafficking of minors.

Clearly this did not come out in the trial, but it is a pretty revelatory document. And Kate, it's just one page right now. This is the one page that I've walked you through. There are many, many more documents that we are piecing through this morning to see what else may be news here. But Donald Trump is in the latest batch

of the Epstein files.

Yeah, much more to come as Caitlin's laying out very clearly. Caitlin, thank you so much for jumping on. I really appreciate it. Sarah.

All right, joining me now is Sarah Krisoff, a former US prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. Thank you for being here. Look, the DOJ has said they are releasing these documents more slowly because they are concerned about exposing victims. But in some of the emails that were released Monday afternoon, by Monday evening, some

of those documents were taken down. We now know a victim's name who wished to remain anonymous was not redacted. We also know President Trump's name, as you heard there from Caitlin, what appears in several places in the latest dump. This is the second time they've released documents

only to remove them again from what you have seen so far. Is this just sloppy work from the DOJ

or do you see this as being more calculated? So it is a hard job to redact these documents appropriately. The law set forth sort of categories of material that could be redacted. The DOJ has to go through these very carefully, make calls about, you know, really page by page about what needs to be redacted or not. But you know, they have all of the resources in the world to do that. I mean, they have thousands of lawyers, top lawyers, who could be working on these documents,

following a protocol and making decisions. So I mean, they certainly should be moving quicker than they are. And we shouldn't really be seeing mistakes, particularly mistakes regarding victims' names.

But you know, it is a, this is a human process and a very laborious, time-intensive process.

And as we go through these, of course, other organizations going through these, the Washington Post saying that the latest tranche of Epstein documents, there was a subpoena sent to Mar-a-Lago in 2021 for records related to the government's case against Ghislaine Maxwell. What do you glean from that?

Yeah, I mean, some of the juiciest stuff really is going to be in internal DOJ emails, right? That's where the prosecutors are talking about their case. That's where they're sort of hashing out the evidence that they're seeing. So we're going to see some good stuff in there, as we already talked about this morning. The other place I think you're going to see really interesting material is in FBI reports,

302 reports, to the extent those are released in unredacted form or partially redacted form, because that's really going to set out the nature of the investigation and the things

that were the steps that were taken in connection with the investigation. You just mentioned this,

there were a large number of documents showing in this latest tranche the objections filed by Epstein's victims in 2008 after the U.S. attorney in Miami agreed his office would not prosecute Epstein on federal charges in exchange for Epstein to plead guilty to less serious state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor. What will these documents expose?

What will people see in these documents as they're looking at, you know, what happened there in Miami that a lot of victims are very, very upset with?

Yeah, I mean, the course of events here in terms of sort of the Florida prosecution or lack of prosecution and then the subsequent prosecution why the charges were brought or not brought. And that I think is gonna be very illuminating about whether there was sort of political pressure or external forces on decisions that were made internally

in these prosecutorial bodies.

There is a lot to go through. And as you said, this is an unprecedented amount of information having to come out of the DOJ, but the law says it was supposed to be out altogether, and now it's coming out in more of a trickle. Sarah Krissoff, thank you so much.

I'm sure you will be back when we see more of these documents, appreciate it.

Jess Michaels is the lead writer of a new statement from Epstein Survivors. The statement raises multiple concerns about the way the release of files has been handled. She explained to CNN that no one from the Justice Department reached out to survivors for their input.

To me, what we're seeing is just an incredibly sloppy and inconsistent and thoughtless process that has been done to try to redact names or leaving things haphazardly unredacted. I felt very strongly that this was a clear cut black and white moment.

Friday, December 19th at 1159, if all of the files had not been released publicly, this DOJ had broken the law, the law that took an act of Congress to pass and that the president signed. And to me, that is a point we need to keep talking about. We want to see financial records. We want to see all of the long list of indictments for Jeffrey Epstein back in that sweetheart

deal, the Alex Acosta deal. We wanna see all of that paperwork because it proves the negligence because it proves the negligence that we've been talking about all along.