Live updates: Newly disclosed Epstein documents offer more detail about his interaction with the rich and famous

Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, said Saturday that he had accepted the resignation of his national security adviser, Miroslav Lajcak.

Lajcak’s resignation comes a day after Lajcak’s past communications with Jeffrey Epstein appeared in newly released U.S. documents.

Lajcak, a former Slovak foreign minister and a onetime president of the U.N. General Assembly, denied any wrongdoing. He said his contacts were part of his diplomatic duties and occurred before U.S. authorities opened their investigation into Epstein.

Pressure mounted for his ouster from opposition parties and a nationalist partner in Fico’s governing coalition.

Epstein was emailing with Matthew I. Menchel, a former federal prosecutor who was involved in a deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution in 2007 in exchange for a guilty plea to a state charge.

Menchel replied but didn’t discuss Sandusky. A message seeking comment was left for him.

Epstein told Menchel that he saw nothing in trial transcripts “that proved that Sandusky was innocent” and nothing “that proved to me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Sandusky is guilty either.”

After his own legal trouble involving a minor, Epstein weighed in on ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky’s conviction, writing in a December 2012 email “I also entertain the possibility that Sandusky is innocent.”

Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse involving at least 10 victims over two decades. He is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. Like Epstein, he was accused of preying on children from broken homes and downtrodden lives and enticing them with gifts and, in Sandusky’s case, access to the revered Penn State football program, before sexually abusing them.

Epstein said he was disturbed by the “speed and conviction at which Sandusky was tried and found guilty by the media and public” before trial, saying it reminded him of “the community hysteria surrounding the Salem witchcraft trials. Scary.”

Justice Department officials have acknowledged that many of the records in its files are duplicates, and it was clear from the documents that the people reviewing them took different degrees of care, or exercised different standards, while blacking out names and other identifying information.

There were multiple documents where a name was left exposed in one copy, but redacted in another.

One group of Epstein accusers released a statement complaining that it was too easy to figure out the identities of victims.

Jennie Bond, who reported on the royal family for the BBC, said it would be highly unusual for a royal to meet with someone they knew so little about.

“I mean, what was he thinking?” Bond told the BBC. “What was he thinking when Epstein offered him a 26-year-old Russian very beautiful lady to have dinner with? I mean, was there no red light saying, ’Oh my goodness, you know, is this a security risk? Could she be a spy? Should I do this?’ Nah. He says, ‘That would be absolutely lovely.’’’

The emails released on Friday include an August 2010 exchange between Epstein and an account labeled “The Duke” that occurred soon after the financier was released from home detention following his earlier conviction. Before he was barred from using the title, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was the Duke of York.

“I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with,” Epstein writes.

“The Duke” replies: “Of course. I am in Geneva until the morning of 22nd but would be delighted to see her. Will she be bringing a message from you? Please give her my contact details to get in touch.”

The email is signed “A.”

In response to a redacted email, “The Duke” then writes, “Great. Any other information you might know about her that might be useful to know? Like what have you told her about me and have you given her my email as well?”

Epstein, whose emails often contain typographical errors, responds: “She 26, russian, clevere beautiful, trustworthy and yes she has your email.”
“That was quick!” The Duke replies. “How are you? Good to be free?”

“Great to be free of many things,” Epstein says.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pressing the Justice Department to let lawmakers review unredacted versions of the latest Epstein files release as soon as Sunday.

Raskin’s demand is the latest signal Democrats believe the Justice Department has not fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Raskin said the review is urgent ahead of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Feb. 11 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

He argues Congress must assess whether DOJ’s redactions, from a universe of more than six million pages tied to Jeffrey Epstein, were lawful or improperly shielded from scrutiny.

The latest release of documents includes emails between the convicted sex offender and a correspondent who appears to be the man formerly known as Prince Andrew.

They include an invitation for Epstein to dine at Buckingham Palace, Epstein’s offer to introduce his correspondent to a 26-year-old Russian woman, and photos that appear to show Andrew kneeling over an unidentified person who is lying on the floor.

The revelations come three months after King Charles III stripped Andrew of his royal titles, including the right to be called a prince, as he tried to insulate the monarchy from a steady stream of stories about his younger brother’s relationship with Epstein that has tarnished the royal family for more than a decade. The former prince is now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

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A group representing Epstein survivors is pressing for the full release of Justice Department files with Attorney General Pam Bondi scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee next month.

In a statement released Friday by the publicist for the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accusers, the group said 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.”

“We need to hear directly from Attorney General Pam Bondi when she appears before the House Judiciary Committee,” the statement said, adding that the matter “is not over.”

The group said it would continue pressing for accountability and urged lawmakers from both parties to support the full release of the Epstein files, emphasizing that their demands are “not about politics,” but about transparency and justice for survivors.

Harvard University’s review determined that the convicted sex offender visited campus more than 40 times and had unfettered access to the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, a research center Nowak created in 2003 with $6.5 million from Epstein.

The review also found in 2020 that Harvard accepted more than $9 million from Epstein during the decade leading up to his conviction but barred him from making further donations after that point.

The review done at the request of the university’s president also found that about $200,000 of Epstein’s money had not been spent, and would be given to groups that support victims of sexual violence.

Nowak gave Epstein an office at the program’s building in Harvard Square, the review found, and circumvented campus security rules to grant the financier a key card and “unlimited” access to the facility. Epstein frequently visited Office 610, which was known as “Jeffrey’s Office,” and met with scholars to hear about their work, the review found.

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Epstein gave millions of dollars to research projects associated with Martin Nowak, a Harvard University math professor. In a 2018 email, Epstein assistant Lesley Groff asked someone about a missing key card for Nowak’s office.

“We can’t find it. ... it is kept in my office drawer and it is not there...do you happen to know where it is?” Groff asked. The email recipient is redacted.

In 2021, Harvard barred Nowak from starting new research or advising students for at least two years because of his ties to Epstein after the financier’s 2008 sex crimes conviction. An investigation determined that Nowak gave Epstein an office in his campus research center, along with a building key card.

At the time, Nowak said he regretted the connection between Harvard and Epstein “and the hurt that it has caused.”

Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019, and found dead in his cell just over a month later.

The latest batch of documents includes emails between investigators about Epstein’s death, including an investigator’s observation that his final communication doesn’t look like a suicide note. Multiple investigations have determined that Epstein’s death was a suicide.

The records also detail a trick that jail staffers used to fool the media gathered outside while Epstein’s body was removed: they used boxes and sheets to create what appeared to be a body and loaded it into a white van labeled as belonging to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The reporters followed the van when it left the jail, not knowing that Epstein’s actual body was loaded into a black vehicle, which departed “unnoticed,” according to the interview notes.

Billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk emailed Epstein in 2012 and 2013 about visiting his infamous island compound, the scene of many allegations of sexual abuse.

Epstein inquired in an email about how many people Musk would like flown by helicopter, and Musk responded that it would likely be just him and his partner at the time. “What day/night will be the wildest party on =our island?” he wrote, according to the Justice Department records.

It’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespersons for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Friday.

Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures. “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025

Epstein also invited Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to the island in Dec. 2012. Lutnick’s wife enthusiastically accepted the invitation and said they would arrive on a yacht with their children. The two also had drinks on another occasion in 2011, according to a schedule. Six years later, they e-mailed about the construction of a building across the street from both of their homes.

Lutnick has distanced himself from Epstein, calling him “gross” and saying in 2025 that he cut ties decades ago. He didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment on Friday afternoon.

The documents show Epstein exchanged hundreds of friendly texts with Steve Bannon, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, some months before Epstein’s death.

They discussed politics, travel and a documentary Bannon was said to be planning that would help salvage Epstein’s reputation.

In March 2019, Bannon asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome.

A couple of months later, Epstein messaged to Bannon, “Now you can understand why trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you and I are friends.”

The context is unclear from the documents, which were released with many redactions and little clear organization.

Another 2018 exchange focused on Trump’s threats at the time to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he had named to the post just the year prior.

Around the same time, Epstein also communicated with Kathy Ruemmler, a lawyer and former Obama White House official. In a typo-filled email, he warned that Democrats should stop demonizing Trump as a Mafia-type figure even as he derided the president as a “maniac.”

Bannon did not immediately respond to a message from the AP seeking comment. Ruemmler said through a spokesperson she was associated with Epstein professionally during her time as a lawyer in private practice and now “regrets ever knowing him.”