NPR85%
Available to download Friday, some Epstein files no longer there Saturday afternoon73%
By Casey Morell0%
12/20/2025, 7:57:48 PM
Keywords: Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Epstein Library, Justice Department, Doj, Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, Redactions, Documents, Congress
BS Summary: This article contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Self-Serving Bias, and Anchoring Bias, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 43.8% saturation with 264 hits. Analysis detected 914 faulty-reasoning hits from 603 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 66.2% and a BS Rank of 73% (4,540 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 73.00% of the article peer group.
An NPR analysis of the Epstein files shows some documents, originally available on Friday, are no longer on the Department of Justice's "Epstein Library" website as the DOJ releases more files.
The Department of Justice started releasing files related to the life, death and criminal investigations of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein Friday.
Files continued to be posted on its "Epstein Library" website on Saturday.
But NPR identified more than a dozen files released by the DOJ on Friday that are no longer available Saturday afternoon, including one that shows President Trump's photo on a desk among several other photographs.
The removed files also show various works of art, including those containing nudity.
On its website, the Justice Department directs people to report any files that should not have been posted by notifying the agency using a dedicated email address.
A statement at the top of each page of the website said: "In view of the Congressional deadline, all reasonable efforts have been made to review and redact personal information pertaining to victims, other private individuals, and protect sensitive materials from disclosure."
The DOJ acknowledged, though, "because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content, to include matters of a sexual nature."
The DOJ in a statement on Sunday clarified that it removed an image of President Trump due to a request from the Southern District of New York, where judges had overseen the last cases against Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Justice Department had returned the image of Trump's photo to its website as of Sunday afternoon.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Justice temporarily removed the image for further review.
After the review, it was determined there is no evidence that any Epstein victims are depicted in the photograph, and it has been reposted without any alteration or redaction," the department said in a statement posted to social media.
Congressional concerns
After the initial release of files, some members of Congress raised concerns about what was missing from the data sets.
"There are powerful men, bankers, politicians who we know from survivors - they've told us this — who were at these parties where there were many young women, and a few were under age, and these powerful men knew about it, and they didn't say anything," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told NPR.
"They need to be at least publicly held accountable."
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who cosponsored the Epstein Transparency Act in the House along with Khanna, criticized the redactions.
Posting on X, he said the release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law."
He also warned "a future DOJ could convict the current [Attorney General] and others" for not properly releasing all files the law mandated be made public.
Apart from the photo that is no longer available to download, Trump's name and image appears rarely in the new documents available.
There are a few pictures of him with women and a framed photo of Epstein and a redacted woman with a $22,500 oversized check signed by Trump.
While Trump wasn't mentioned much this time around, he was a frequent subject of emails and text messages in another Epstein file tranche released by the House Democratic Oversight Committee — with well over a thousand different mentions — though mainly as the subject of Epstein's near-obsession with his presidency, as the latter positioned himself as a Trump whisperer of sorts to his powerful associates.
NPR's Rahul Mukherjee and Stephen Fowler contributed reporting.
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.