Videos in the Epstein files reveal disturbing glimpses of his private life

Among the hundreds of gigabytes of material released by the Justice Department as part of the Epstein files are more than 2,000 videos, with hours of footage that had never before been made public. 

The most revealing material comes from Data Set 10, part of the huge tranche of documents released on Jan. 30. The videos include footage Jeffrey Epstein recorded himself, received from others or downloaded from the internet. 

Reporters at The Free Press have watched all of those clips and built a compilation video to make the contents of the files more accessible, reporter Tanya Lukyanova said in a video introducing the project. 

Among the videos are many showing young women dancing, sitting or lying in bed. Sometimes the subjects appear undressed or in lewd positions, with their faces and bodies hidden by black boxes, though there are occasional clips where a face is visible. 

Some of the clips Epstein recorded appear to be explicit videos of himself, and much of what he downloaded is pornographic. Those clips were largely redacted by the Justice Department, with only their watermarks visible. 

One video features drone footage of Epstein’s private island, while another shows his U.S. passport, which bears a message identifying him as a convicted sex offender. 

There is also a lengthy interview Steve Bannon filmed with Epstein for a proposed a documentary, which Epstein apparently hoped would help rehabilitate his image.

The Free Press published all 14 hours of the video footage found in the data set, only excluding obvious duplicates, audio-only files and fully redacted videos that have neither sound nor image. 

See the full story and video from The Free Press here. CBS News and The Free Press are both owned by Paramount, a Skydance corporation.

The Justice Department has released millions of documents related to Epstein over the past few months after the Epstein Files Transparency Act required it to produce all of its files on the late sex offender, who died in jail in 2019. 

CBS News has a team of journalists examining the files and reporting on notable findings, including Epstein’s financial dealings and connections with wealthy and powerful people in business, politics, diplomacy, royalty, academia and entertainment.