Victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have expressed anger after a long-awaited cache of records from cases against him was released, with many pages blacked out and photos censored.
The trove of material released by the US Justice Department included photographs of former president Bill Clinton and other infamous names in Epstein's social circle, including Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson.
But blackouts of many of the documents, combined with control over the release by officials in President Donald Trump's administration, fuelled allegations of a high-level cover-up.
Democrats on Saturday demanded answers after one image that included a photo of Trump was no longer visible in the Justice Department's online release.
"If they're taking this down, just imagine how much more they're trying to hide," said senior Democrat Chuck Schumer.
"This could be one of the biggest cover-ups in American history."
Among scores of blacked-out sections, one 119-page document labelled "Grand Jury-NY" was entirely redacted.
One Epstein survivor, Jess Michaels, said she spent hours combing the documents to find her victim's statement and communication from when she had called an FBI tip line.
"I can't find any of those," she told CNN.
"Is this the best that the government can do? Even an act of Congress isn't getting us justice."
Victim privacy
When Trump's aides goaded Clinton over the photos, his spokesman responded that the White House "hasn't been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves."
Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who has long pushed for complete release of the files, said the release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law."
That law required the government's case file to be posted publicly by Friday, constrained only by legal and victim privacy concerns.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told ABC that there was no attempt "to hold anything back" to protect Trump.
Trump was against the disclosure of the files linked to Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The Republican president ultimately bowed to mounting pressure from Congress, including members of his own party, and last month signed the law compelling publication of the materials.
Trump once moved in the same Palm Beach and New York party scene as Epstein, appearing with him at events throughout the 1990s.
He severed ties years before Epstein's 2019 arrest and faces no accusations of wrongdoing in the case.
Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, remains the only person convicted in connection with his crimes and is serving a 20-year sentence for recruiting underage girls for the former banker, whose death was ruled a suicide.
