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(WASHINGTON) — After the Department of Justice released thousands of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a tranche on Friday that included a number of decades-old photographs of former President Bill Clinton, a spokesperson for Clinton on Monday called on all of the files relating to Clinton to be released.

In a statement, Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña accused the DOJ of using the selective release of Epstein documents to imply wrongdoing where there is none, challenging the department to immediately release any remaining materials mentioning or showing Bill Clinton in the files.

Ureña, a spokesperson for Clinton, wrote on Monday that the content and method of how the Department of Justice has released files makes it “clear” that “someone or something is being protected.”

“We do not know whom, what or why,” Ureña wrote. “But we do know this: We need no such protection.”

“Accordingly, we call on President Trump to direct Attorney General Bondi to immediately release any remaining materials referring to, mentioning, or containing a photograph of Bill Clinton,” Ureña added.

Ureña alleged that if the Department of Justice does not do so, it would confirm suspicions that the Department is releasing data selectively to “to imply wrongdoing about individuals who have already been repeatedly cleared by the very same Department of Justice, over many years, under Presidents and Attorneys General of both parties.”

The initial release of the files on Friday contained numerous old photos of Epstein traveling with Clinton, including pictures of Clinton lounging in a jacuzzi and one of him swimming with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking of minors and other offenses.

The images were released without any context or background information.

On Friday, Ureña had written in a statement, “The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”

The Department of Justice has defended both its process and timing in releasing the files, saying in a statement on Sunday that more than 200 lawyers were working “around the clock” to review files for release.

“The Department of Justice is committed to transparency and redacting only what is legally required,” the department said in a statement. “The Department is required by law to redact identifying information about the victims, minors, or potential victims, as well as privileged material. NO redactions have been or will be made to protect famous individuals or politically exposed persons.”

A law signed by President Donald Trump in November required all the files related to federal investigations into the disgraced financier to be released by Friday, Dec. 19. The department has been releasing files since that deadline, but did not fully meet that deadline in releasing all Epstein-related materials, and what has been released so far is a fraction of the files. 

The DOJ has faced backlash from victims and from lawmakers for the slow rollout of the files. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an appearance on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, defended the department’s slow release of the files, saying they wanted to continue to review documents to “protect victims.”

“It’s very simple and very clear: the statute also requires us to protect victims, and so the reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that — to protect victims… we’re going through a very methodical process with hundreds of lawyers looking at every single document and making sure that victims’ names and any of the information from victims is protected and redacted,” Blanche said.

Some of Epstein’s victims and their lawyers have also said redactions in the files released have not been sufficient and that some victims’ identities have been exposed. On Sunday, two attorneys who represent more than 200 survivors of Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell told ABC News that they had been hearing from clients who have seen their names or other identifying information in un-redacted documents in the DOJ’s disclosure.

Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing and denies having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by Clinton in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.

The former president traveled with Epstein several times, according to flight logs from Epstein’s private jets that were made public during civil litigation against Epstein. Those logs showed that Clinton and his entourage had taken four international sojourns in 2002 and 2003 on the financier’s Boeing 727 to locations including Bangkok, Brunei, Rwanda, Russia, China and elsewhere.

President Donald Trump, on Monday, was asked whether he was surprised by the number of photos of Clinton in the files. 

Trump said he has always gotten along with Bill Clinton and added, “I hate to see photos come out of him, but this is what the Democrats, mostly Democrats and a couple of bad Republicans are asking for. So, they’ve given their photos of me too. Everybody was friendly with this guy [Epstein]. Either friendly or not friendly, but you know, he was around. He was all over Palm Beach and other places.”

(Trump himself has denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes and said at the time of Epstein’s arrest in 2019 that they hadn’t spoken in 15 years; he has also spoken about kicking Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago.)

The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released photos earlier this month, prior to the Department of Justice’s releases, that also showed Epstein or Maxwell with Clinton and others, including Trump, Woody Allen, Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, former Prince Andrew and billionaire Richard Branson, among others.  

The context, time frame and location of the photographs are unclear.

ABC News’ James Hill and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche used his first news conference Tuesday to shrug off any suggestion that he would use the Justice Department to more aggressively target perceived enemies of President Donald Trump, as he heaped praise on his ousted predecessor Pam Bondi. 

“First of all, we have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now, and it is true that some of them involve men women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with and that believe should be investigated,” Blanche said. “That is his right, and indeed it is his duty to do that, meaning, to lead this country.” 

Blanche denied he views President Trump’s public statements urging the prosecutions of his enemies as “pressure” on him in serving as the head of the DOJ. Trump, naming several of his perceived political foes in a September social media post, said, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!“

“I do not view this as pressure,” Blanche said. “I do not view this as something that is going to keep me up at night, except to make sure that we are investigating every case that we that we have to the fullest extent of the law and using all the resources we can.”

Trump announced Thursday that Bondi was being ousted as his attorney general in a post on his social media platform, saying she’ll move to a role working in the private sector. Blanche said it remains a mystery why Bondi was ousted, despite widespread reporting that it was due to Trump’s frustration with her lack of successful prosecutions against his political opponents and her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. 

“Nobody has any idea why the attorney general is no longer the attorney general and I’m the acting attorney general, except for President Trump,” Blanche said. 

Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s defense attorney in the cases brought against him by former special counsel Jack Smith and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, repeatedly sparred with reporters at Tuesday’s press event, accusing the media of ignoring years of so-called “weaponization” under the Biden administration. 

“When I’m asked questions, or when I see reporting about shock and awe at this supposed weaponization of this Department of Justice, it means nothing to me, because it’s completely false,” Blanche said. “People say the president wants to go after his political enemies. No, the president has said time and time again that he wants justice.” 

With the news conference happening amid uncertainty over President Trump’s Tuesday morning threat to destroy the “civilization” of Iran, ABC News pressed Blanche on whether the DOJ is providing advice to the White House about what kind of military strikes could constitute potential war crimes. 

“The Department of Justice, as it always does, supports the Department of War, the White House, Department of State to the extent that’s involved, and our intelligence communities, to the extent that that’s something that’s appropriate, and we provide counsel to them, and we have been doing that, as you would expect,” said Blanche, who declined to engage on the topic of potential war crimes. 

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(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon’s decision to send the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, a 2,200-troop force, to the Middle East is fueling new speculation about whether the conflict with Iran could involve U.S. ground troops, a step that would mark a dramatic escalation and potentially push the already unpopular war into a far more dangerous phase.

It could take up to two weeks, or the end of March, before the unit is in place and its presence unlikely to significantly shift the dynamics of the war on its own, experts say. A Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) can deliver an initial surge of troops quickly, but seizing and holding key terrain, or sustaining a prolonged fight, would almost certainly require a far larger ground force.

Experts say the MEU would likely be used to conduct raids across the Iranian shoreline to gain a foothold in areas across the crucial oil shipping waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, which has emerged as a contested point of the conflict.

A Quinnipiac University poll from earlier this month showed 74% of registered voters opposed sending U.S. ground troops into Iran while 20% supported it.

Asked Tuesday if he was afraid of the Iranian regime’s assertion that U.S. boots on the ground “will be another Vietnam,” President Donald Trump replied, “No, I’m not afraid. I’m really not afraid of anything.”

Sailing from the Pacific, it will likely take up to two weeks for Marines to be in place in the Middle East, and it is not yet clear what those troops would be used for. The unit operates as a self-contained, sea-based force — essentially a floating hub capable of launching troops, aircraft and equipment without relying on nearby bases or infrastructure. 

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz would unlock a waterway through which 20% of the globe’s oil supply transits each day. Its closure has seen gas prices soar and markets roiled. Trump has referenced shorelines from which the Iranians can attack vessels transiting the waterway.

“Now we are pounding that area, that coast, as you know, left side,” Trump said Monday. “We’re pounding it like really pounding it hard.”

According to Michael Eisenstadt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, the MEU could take part in land-based “raids” on targets along that coast.

“There’s a number of missions where you can conceivably see a MEU playing a role, either unilaterally or kind of in conjunction with maybe the deployment of larger Army units,” said Eisenstadt, who believes the deployment of the MEU was likely related to the strait.

Iranian fortifications along the coast that could “interfere with convoy operations,” Eisenstadt said, could be U.S. targets. Top military leaders have said they’ve explored the potential uses of convoys, or warship escorts, to facilitate the safe passage of commercial shipping through the strait.  

Raiding parties could target missile storage bunkers that are hardened and difficult for U.S. warplanes to destroy from the air.

The idea would be to “clear out the shore and then use air power to prevent them from returning once you’ve cleared out those areas,” Eisenstadt said.

Such an operation would not by itself create conditions for smooth sailing in the strait, experts told ABC News. 

“My concern is that it takes so little to disrupt the shipping industry, Eisenstadt said. “If there’s a small, you know, kind of a small residual [Iranian] capability, it could still potentially be very disruptive.”

The 2,200 Marines in the MEU would limit any operation longer than a raid, which have pre-planned withdrawals. To get on land, these types of Marine units primarily seize footholds by riding small watercraft onto beaches or by helicopter insertion.

“Normally in an amphibious assault, you have all sorts of Navy landing craft behind you to sustain the force ashore. There’s none of that. There’s none of that logistical tail that would allow them to remain ashore,” said retired Marine Col. Steve Ganyard, an ABC News contributor.

Leaving strategic waters in the Pacific

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is primarily based in Japan, where it routinely trains with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces on skills in high demand across the Pacific, including rapidly seizing small islands. Earlier this month, it took part in a major annual exercise that featured amphibious assault drills, marksmanship training and operations focused on capturing hostile terrain, according to the Defense Department. 

Their removal from the region removes one of the primary ground combat elements in the Pacific, which could respond to a crisis with China or North Korea. Other significant combat elements in the region include the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, stationed to bolster South Korea’s frontline against Pyongyang, as well as the Army’s 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska.

“That leaves a ground combat and amphibious capability gap in the region,” Carlton Haelig, an expert in military operations and fellow at the Center for New American Security, said. 

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based out of Camp Pendleton, California, is preparing to deploy to the Pacific, according to Pentagon imagery.

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