Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

In one set of released emails, Lord Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US last year over his links to Epstein, discussed staying at the financier’s property.

The emails are from 16 June 2009, when Epstein was serving a prison sentence for soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18.

For much of his sentence, Epstein was allowed to work from his office during the day and returned to jail each night.

Mandelson had been appointed as Gordon Brown’s first secretary of state, effectively the de facto deputy prime minister, 11 days earlier.

Mandelson asked Epstein: “Shall I stay at yours Friday-Sunday this weekend ?”

Epstein replied asking if he’d prefer an apartment elsewhere in New York and said he was “thrilled to host and sad I’m not there”.

Mandelson said there were better “facilities” at Epstein’s property.

At this point, Epstein replied to someone else and copied Mandelson in, asking them to “implement” the arrangements.

A previously released report by the JP Morgan bank suggested that Mandelson had stayed at Epstein’s apartment in New York in 2009.

Mandelson has repeatedly said he regrets his past friendship with Epstein, which has long been public knowledge. He has said he never saw any wrongdoing while with Epstein and "fell for his lies".

In an email exchange included in the files, what appears to be a Special Agent in the FBI (whose name is redacted) requests information pertaining to Ghislaine Maxwell's helicopters and private jet.

The response shows her two helicopters were nicknamed "Air Ghislaine 1" and "Air Ghislaine 2".

Image source, US Department of Justice

Image source, US Department of Justice

We're now seeing a file including Maxwell's US naturalisation certificate.

In it, her home address is listed at Little St James Island - which Epstein purchased in 1998.

Under occupation, she is listed as being employed by Epstein - under the title "manager".

Image source, US Department of Justice

Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche has announced the latest drop of files related to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Here's what he said:

• The files include three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos, not all taken by Epstein and including some commercial pornography
• Anything identifying victims, depicting child sexual abuse or death, or jeopardising an active investigation has been removed
• The faces of any women who appear in the files, other than Ghislaine Maxwell, have been blurred. No images of any men have been redacted, unless it was impossible to redact the women's images without also redacting the men
• Blanche said he feels frustration with the process of releasing files, and acknowledged that Epstein's victims have "gone through unspeakable pain"
• The Deputy AG said the Justice Department "did not protect" Trump and that he takes "umbridge" at suggestions the DoJ does not take child exploitation seriously, adding the department recently arrested 293 offenders.

We are currently combing through the files and will bring you any top lines when we have them.

We're going through the latest batch of files the Department of Justice has released in relation to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Among the files, located in dataset 10, is a PDF copy of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's registration into the Joint Automated Booking System - which is used to register alleged offenders once they have been arrested,

The 2020 file features a picture of Maxwell in what appears to be a prison-issued orange jumpsuit.

It includes other personal details including her full name, aliases, and a redacted home address in Bradford, New Hampshire.

Also in the file is a list of the charges files against her, including sexual exploitation of a minor, perjury and transport interstate for sexual activity.

Image source, US Department of Justice

We've been taking a look over some of the newly released Epstein files.

In the first dataset, which is a stream of court documents, there are lots of heavily redacted documents and email exchanges.

Amongst them are psychological reports into Jeffrey Epstein while he was in prison and details about a laptop being delivered to Ghislaine Maxwell.

There are also documents in which whole pages are redacted, such as the one pictured below.

We're continuing to comb through the latest batch of Epstein files - stay with us.

Image source, US Department of Justice

Blanche now faces a question on the criticism the DoJ has faced on the handling of the release of the files.

He compares the size of the six million pages to "two Eiffel Towers", and that the department was "obviously" not defying the 30-day deadline set by Congress (which expired in December), but were complying with the need to protect victims.

As you go to access each new dataset on the DoJ website, users are asked to prove they are aged 18 or older before entering.

From there, a webpage appears with a series of links to the individual documents, which our teams are beginning to pick through.

It will take us quite some time to go through all of the material. Even downloading it to our search tools (as we are now) is a long process.

We'll share any significant disclosures on this page - stay with us.

Image source, US Department of Justice

Blanche says the Justice Department "did not protect" President Donald Trump in its review of the Epstein files.

He says there is a hunger and thirst for information about Trump that he does not think will be satisfied with these documents.

Trump's direction to the Justice Department was to be "transparent", he says, which is what they did.

Blanche is asked about whether he can share what is new and not new in this tranche of documents, and if he can reveal whether there are any new high-profile names mentioned in the documents. He declines to do so.

We are currently reading through the millions of pages that have just been released and will update you with what we find.

Blanche is asked about the Epstein abuse victims and survivors, and is told some have "expressed frustration" at the process of releasing the files.

"Same here," he responds.

"The victims of Epstein have gone through unspeakable pain," he continues.

He says he hopes that the work that has been done over the last months has been able to "bring closure" to the victims.

Image source, Reuters

Blanche is asked if there are any ongoing investigations related to Jeffrey Epstein.

He responds by saying he is not trying to be "coy" when he mentioned that some redactions could be related to ongoing investigations and that there is no tranche of "super secret" Epstein documents that the Department of Justice is withholding.

Blanche is taking questions.

A journalist asks about Ghislaine Maxwell's claim that more than two dozen men signed secret agreements with the federal government to avoid being prosecuted.

Blanche says he has no reaction to this and reiterates that his department has reviewed "every single piece of paper" associated with the investigations and that if such arrangements exist, he is not aware of them.

Blanche says he takes "umbrage" any the suggestion the DOJ doesn't take child exploitation seriously, and goes on to list some of the recent investigations it has undertaken.

"Every single day the DOJ investigates and prosecutes people guilty of people trafficking," he says, adding that the department recently arrested 293 offenders and terminated 3.8 million dark web accounts.

Blanche is now giving more details on the redactions we can expect in the newest release of the Epstein files.

He says there have been extensive redactions in photos and videos to for personal identification purposes.

The Justice Department has redacted every woman in images and videos other than Ghislaine Maxwell, he said. No men were redacted unless it was impossible to redact the woman without redacting them as well.

As a reminder, appearing in these files does not indicate wrongdoing.

We're starting to look through the material - here's howpublished at 16:14 GMT

16:14 GMT

When it comes to images, the first thing we do is check if they’ve previously appeared online via a reverse image search.

If there are people featured in the images who we don't recognise, we'll use publicly available facial recognition tools, but they aren't always reliable, so we might need further corroboration.

We're also combing through the text documents and any video - we'll bring you details as soon as we can.

Image source, Reuters

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche lists the information that was excluded from the publication today.

These categories include information with personally identifiable details of victims, medical files, any depictions of child sexual abuse material, anything that would jeopardise an active investigation, or anything depicting death or physical abuse.

He adds that they have blurred the faces of any women who appear in the files, other than Ghislaine Maxwell, and have not redacted the faces of any men who appear.

Blanche goes on to say that the 2,000 videos and 180,000 images are not just taken by Epstein.

He says some of these are commercial pornography, although some do appear to be photos and videos taken by Epstein and others around him.

Todd Blanche says that the Justice Department has released three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos in its latest drop of files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The deputy attorney general adds that this means a total of 3.5m pages have been released in compliance with the transparency act.

Image source, US Department of Justice

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche starts by confirming that he is giving an update on the release of the Epstein files.

Justice Department employees have been working hard to get the files released, he said, with more than 500 lawyers and professionals spending long days and nights to complete this production.