The US Justice Department has released thousands of heavily redacted documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that made scant reference to US President Donald Trump but extensively featured Democratic former president Bill Clinton.

The absence of references to Trump in the documents released on Friday was notable given that pictures and documents related to him have trickled out of previous Epstein releases for years. Trump's name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein's private plane that were part of a first batch of Epstein material the Justice Department released in February, for instance.

The partial release was intended to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite the Republican president's months-long effort to keep them sealed. The scandal surrounding Epstein has become a self-inflicted political wound for Trump, who for years had promoted conspiracy theories about Epstein to his supporters.

It was not immediately clear how substantive the new materials were, given that many Epstein-related documents have previously been made public since his 2019 death in jail, which was ruled a suicide. Many of the files were heavily redacted - several documents with 100 pages or more were entirely blacked out – and the Justice Department acknowledged it was still reviewing hundreds of ‍thousands of additional pages for possible release.

The material included ⁠evidence from several investigations into Epstein, along with photos of Clinton, long scorned by Republicans. But they appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein's well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s ‍before they had a falling out prior to Epstein's first conviction in 2008.

Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein's crimes.

The Justice Department sought to draw attention to Clinton, with two agency spokespeople posting on social media images that they said showed him with Epstein victims.

Clinton's deputy chief of staff Angel Urena said in a statement that the White House was attempting to "shield themselves" from scrutiny by focusing on the former president.

"They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year old photos as they want, but this isn't about Bill Clinton," he wrote.

Trump ordered the Justice Department last month to investigate Clinton's ties to Epstein, in what critics viewed as an effort to shift the focus away from his ‌own relationship with Epstein.

In images released on Friday, Clinton can be seen in a swimming pool with Epstein's sex-trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and another person whose face is blacked out. In another image he can be seen in a hot tub with with what appears to be another person whose face is blacked out. Clinton has previously expressed regret for socialising with Epstein ‍and said he was not aware of any criminal activity.

There were more than 1,200 victims or their relatives whose names ‌must be redacted from the files, said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a letter to Congress.

In a ‌statement, the ‌White House claimed the release demonstrated its transparency and commitment to justice for Epstein's victims, criticising previous Democratic administrations for not doing the same. But the statement ignored that the disclosures occurred only because Congress forced the administration's hand, after Trump officials declared earlier this year that no more Epstein files would be made public.

Some lawmakers immediately criticised the administration for failing to release all of the files.

"This set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence," Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Republican US ⁠Representative Thomas Massie, a driving force behind the legislation, said on X that Friday's release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law." (Reuters)