On Friday, the Justice Department finally unveiled some 3 million documents from the criminal investigations of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in accordance with a law that established a deadline of Dec. 19, 2025, for making the material public. The DOJ’s statement on the release, which includes more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, noted that this brings their total disclosures about the notorious and well-connected sex trafficker to about 3.5 million pages.
According to the DOJ, the documents came from a variety of law enforcement proceedings related to Epstein’s activities and eventual death by suicide in a jail cell in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. “These files were collected from five primary sources including the Florida and New York cases against Epstein, the New York case against Maxwell, the New York cases investigating Epstein’s death, the Florida case investigating a former butler of Epstein, multiple FBI investigations, and the Office of Inspector General investigation into Epstein’s death,” the department explained.
For the past year, Donald Trump — a close friend of Epstein’s for more than a decade before a falling out in the mid-2000s — has faced hard questions about why his administration was not publishing the so-called “Epstein files” as he had promised to during his 2024 presidential campaign. In the first year of his second term, he tried to dismiss the sordid Epstein saga (and his heavily documented relationship with the financier) as “bullshit” and a “hoax,” to no avail. His MAGA base was further incensed when the DOJ announced in July 2025 that it had found no evidence that Epstein kept a “client list” of people he trafficked girls to or that he was murdered in a scheme protect his associates from prosecution. (His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of sex trafficking and conspiracy charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.)
In November, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump, which required the U.S. Attorney General to make the content of the multiple Epstein investigations “publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press briefing on Friday that the DOJ has 6 million documents in total but would not unseal all of them in order to protect victims and avoid disseminating the child sexual abuse material included. He also declared that the department had not sought to shield Trump in any way when preparing the latest batch of files to drop. “We comply with the act, and there is no ‘protect President Trump.’ We didn’t protect or not protect anybody,” Blanche said. “I mean, I think that there’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. And there’s nothing I can do about that.”
A group representing Epstein’s survivors, which has roundly criticized the Trump administration’s handling of files on him, blasted Friday’s disclosures as incomplete and damaging to those abused. “This latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files is being sold as transparency, but what it actually does is expose survivors,” the group said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone. “Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous. As survivors, we should never be the ones named, scrutinized, and retraumatized while Epstein’s enablers continue to benefit from secrecy. This is a betrayal of the very people this process is supposed to serve.”
“The Justice Department cannot claim it is finished releasing files until every legally required document is released and every abuser and enabler is fully exposed,” the survivor group’s statement continued. “We need to hear directly from Attorney General Pam Bondi when she appears before the House Judiciary Committee on February 11.” Last February, Bondi weathered significant backlash for a much-hyped stunt in which she distributed binders of Epstein documents to MAGA influencers only for it to quickly emerge that these documents were already publicly available. She is expected to be grilled on the Epstein case as well as Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department to seek retribution against political enemies.
Included in Friday’s dump are documents from the FBI, which include allegations that individuals made to the agency about Trump while he was running for president. The Justice Department insisted that these allegations are baseless. “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act,” the DOJ said. “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
Among these uncorroborated complaints that mention Trump are graphic accounts of sexual abuse that name other powerful men who knew Epstein, including Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz, who for years represented him as an attorney. Multiple tips led to follow-up contact from the FBI, according to the documents, though it’s not clear if any resulted in an official and extensive investigation. A number of the accounts temporarily vanished from the DOJ website on Friday, then reappeared, prompting some on social media to speculate that the White House may have sought to cover them up, though there is no evidence that it did so.
Another person to come up in the new tranche of documents was Elon Musk. Emails showed that Epstein and Musk corresponded in December 2013 — five years after Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida and required to register as a sex offender — about plans to meet on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little Saint James, over the New Year holiday. “We will be in St. Bart’s,” Musk wrote at one point. “When should we head to your island on the 2nd?” It’s not clear whether the visit they discussed ever took place, although Epstein did offer to fly Musk in on a helicopter.
Amid a public feud last year following his exit from the government as the administrator of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Musk accused Trump of withholding Epstein documents because he was named in them. “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,” he wrote in an X post in June. “That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” He later deleted his posts about Trump’s connections to Epstein.
Howard Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary, also planned a trip to Epstein’s private island, according to 2012 emails included in Friday’s document drop. In an interview last year, Lutnick claimed that he had cut off all contact with Epstein in 2005, but the exchange from seven years later, which had not previously been disclosed, shows that he inquired about bringing his wife and children to Little Saint James for a meal. A subsequent message from Epstein to Lutnick read “Nice seeing you,” suggesting that the visit did take place, but Lutnick claimed to The New York Times on Friday that he “spent zero time” with Epstein.
Blanche downplayed the possibility of exposing anyone else’s involvement in Epstein’s crimes. “I don’t think the public or you all are going to uncover men within the Epstein files who abused these women, unfortunately,” he told reporters, although he vowed to go after individuals if evidence agains them came to light. “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abused these women,” he said. “If we learn about information and evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will.”
People bicycle along the water in Manhattan, New York, on April 16, 2026.
It Doesn’t Get Much Dumber Than Trump’s War on ‘DEI Bike Lanes’
Out of all the sins of the Trump administration — wars, ICE raids, anti-vax lunacy and the return of measles, the empowering of Kash Patel and Stephen Miller, and so much more — Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy declaring war on “DEI bike lanes” is surely a small thing. But it’s also such a monumentally stupid act, so counterproductive, so anti-MAHA as to be completely maddening. NPR recently reported that staff at the Federal Highway Administration have been asked to purge any references to bikes and bike lanes from the agency’s website.
Additionally, Duffy, a former Real World and Road Rules participant, retired member of Congress, and devoted Donald Trump sycophant, wrote: “We urge Congress to restrict competitive and formula grant funding for bicycle lanes and other bicycle infrastructure that reduce travel throughput [sic] for motor vehicles and support removal of existing bike lanes that contribute to congestion.”
Despite protests, the feds moved to dismantle a beloved D.C. bike lane earlier this year, but that action was halted when a judge, in response to a lawsuit brought be a local bicycling group, paused the destruction, writing in a 61-page opinion: “The Court’s review of the record reveals the absence of a reasoned explanation.”
Logical arguments are out but irrational attacks are a constant feature of the Trump administration. And in this case, Duffy and Trump are going after something that is widely popular and spinning it into partisan nonsense. According to a 2025 YouGov poll, three quarters of Americans support having bike lanes. Broadly speaking, Americans think bike lanes increase quality of life and safety for drivers and cyclists alike. Bike paths and rail trails also bring tourism to places in rural America hungry for visitors and are a huge boost to local economies. The Empire State Trail in New York stretches from Manhattan all the way to Canada and generates a whopping $1.87 billion in economic activity, according to a recent study. Some 9.75 million visitors have ridden parts of the trail.
Nor are bike lane projects particularly expensive, especially along urban routes. Certainly not compared to, say, lobbing more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Iran at a cost of some $2 million a shot. For an administration that claims to want to make people healthy again, the declaration of war on bike lanes may be as bizarre as spending billions to attack Iran. Biking is an excellent low-impact cardio endeavor. Riding a bike helps to clear the mind, brings people outside, and is a fun family activity. Moreover, in the winter, cross country skiers and snowmobilers can enjoy those same paths in rural areas.
What bike lanes have to do with DEI is unclear. Likely this is the Biden administration’s fault for some admittedly political language touting the infrastructure bill’s grants. The Biden team announced they would “consider how projects can address climate change, ensure racial equity, and remove barriers to opportunity.” Which could be seen as lofty goals when many Americans were desperate for pot hole and bridge repairs. But that’s not really the issue here. If the Biden people were for something, then the Trump people must always be against it. This is a ridiculous calculus, counterproductive, and why voters are so sick and tired of our broken political system.
In a maneuver worthy of a North Korea apparatchick, Duffy apparently ordered data showing that bike lanes make driving safer scrubbed from a federal website. Time and again, like the pharaohs of Egypt, the administration will simply excise information that doesn’t fit its agenda. Duffy, the former pro-lumberjack turned MAGA cheerleader, is also leading the charge to rename New York’s Penn Station after Trump, and using access to much needed federal funding for a necessary renovation as leverage to make his case.
Not surprisingly, Duffy and Trump’s hostility extends to high-speed rail or really any kind of investment in public transport. The very successful congestion pricing program in New York City was declared an enemy by the Trump folks — even after data showed 27 million fewer cars entered Manhattan after just one year of the program. After all, if we can’t all be stuck in Midtown traffic while riding in a giant gas-guzzling SUV then what’s really the point of being American?
None of this makes any sense. Surely we can have roadways for our cars and our cyclists. Recently, my childhood best friend was visiting New York and I took him on a Citibike ride around lower Manhattan, on the same city streets where we grew up during the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, biking those streets was the kind of high-risk activity many parents simply wouldn’t allow. Or in our case, they closed their eyes and prayed. There were virtually no bike lanes at the time. For kids, it was extra dangerous because you are smaller and less visible. Speaking of busted infrastructure, I learned to ride on the abandoned elevated West Side Highway, dodging broken bottles, garbage, and much worse. On our ride this year, my friend was amazed. Perhaps it was the beauty of riding on a protected path watching a Manhattan sunset along the Hudson River, or maybe he was seeing a city so completely reborn while gliding along on two wheels. Sometimes when you are on a bike, your eye just catches the world passing by differently.
During the early 2000s, it was Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire Republican mayor of the city, who pushed for hundreds of miles of bike paths, making the city infinitely safer for bikers and alleviating pressure on mass transit. It’s one of Bloomberg’s most positive legacies. And yes, there are plenty of cyclists who ride like jerks and don’t obey traffic laws — but we can and should police that just like we do reckless driving. Of course there’s an inherent risk in riding a bike, but dedicated bike lanes make our country safer and better.
Two exceptional but wildly different people have said things about riding a bike that have always stuck with me. Albert Einstein used cycling as a metaphor for existence: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Truer words were never spoken. And basketball legend LeBron James has made the case for biking as an equity engine of sorts, recalling how his first bike changed his life: “[My bike] gave me the freedom to not only get to places, but to access things that otherwise would have been out of reach. Even now, riding a bike makes me feel like a kid again. There’s nothing like feeling the air on your face and that freedom to just ride.”