From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

The latest release of files related to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein left key questions about his rise to power and his connections to the president unanswered.

Today, my colleague David Enrich explains how he and a team of reporters worked to fill in those

mysteries and reveal the truth about Jeffrey Epstein's origins.

It's Tuesday, December 23rd.

David Enrich, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. David, I think this is probably your fourth or fifth welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

David, I think this is probably your fourth or fifth appearance on the show this year to talk about Jeffrey Epstein. And this time we're having you back because on Friday, there was obviously this massive file release from the Justice Department that, as far as I understand it, did not really advance our understanding of Jeffrey Epstein or his crimes or the people in his orbit.

Can you tell us what you think the biggest takeaways were?

It's a hard question because there were not huge takeaways.

And we got lots of bits of incremental color and detail that reinforced the deep depravity of Epstein's crimes and the horrible things he was doing. We also got some new tidbits. We saw, for example, Bill Clinton in numerous

photos with Epstein and his associates, including in a swimming pool. We saw that one of Epstein's

victims back in 1996 had reported

him to the FBI for having child sexual abuse material. And that's a decade before we know

the federal prosecutors actually started investigating Epstein. So that was definitely a new

development. But for the most part, there was nothing here that fundamentally altered our understanding of Epstein and its network, and notably also very little about Donald Trump, whose name was barely mentioned in these files. And it was Trump's relationship with Epstein that triggered a lot of the political interest in this investigation to begin with.

Right. Just to remind people, this whole file of release is coming about because of a massive

pressure campaign, mostly from Democrats, but also from some within the MAGA orbit for Donald

Trump and his administration to release the so-called Epstein files, right? And that basically

forced Trump to sign legislation

authorizing these files to be released from the Justice Department. Yeah, it's worth noting that the

Justice Department did not do what it was legally required to do, which was release all of the

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