The latest batch of Epstein files released Tuesday sheds new light on the Justice Department’s evidence involving Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, including that prosecutors believed the British royal “engaged in sexual conduct” with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.
The files also disclosed a grab bag of information drawn from prosecutors’ long-running probe of the now-deceased financier, including an apparent letter from Epstein to another sex offender, Larry Nassar; a dustup over a subpoena to Amazon; and the existence of a photograph of Donald Trump and Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell obtained from the phone of the president’s ally Steve Bannon.
Though the release of the Epstein files remains incomplete, the latest tranche contains thousands of previously undisclosed documents and emails related to the Justice Department’s investigation, including internal emails from the prosecutors working on the case. A new batch of materials corresponding to the latest published sequence of documents first briefly appeared on the DOJ’s site Monday.
Here’s POLITICO’s look at some of the revelations in the latest release.
Investigators sought a ‘compelled’ interview with then-Prince Andrew
Federal prosecutors, armed with evidence that Mountbatten-Windsor had “engaged in sexual conduct” with one of Epstein’s victims, threatened to force the British royal to speak with investigators under oath, according to a document in the latest batch of Epstein files.
Justice Department officials asked U.K. authorities to “conduct a compelled interview” with Mountbatten-Windsor in spring 2020 if he refused to voluntarily answer questions as part of DOJ’s probe.
Prosecutors also disclosed the existence of evidence that Mountbatten-Windsor “was present” for “certain” interactions between a victim, Epstein and Maxwell, and of “documentary” evidence that Andrew “had knowledge” that Maxwell “recruited females to engage in sex acts with Epstein and other men.” Prosecutors also wrote that they had “evidence that Prince Andrew engaged in sexual conduct involving one of Epstein’s victims.”
However, prosecutors wrote that Andrew “is not presently a target of the investigation, and U.S. authorities have not, to date, gathered evidence that he has committed any crime under U.S. law.”
The document, known as a mutual legal assistance treaty request, or MLAT, also revealed that prosecutors sought to question Mountbatten-Windsor about two sex-trafficking investigations: that of Epstein, and a separate probe of Peter Nygard, a fashion executive who was under investigation at the time for a sex-trafficking ring targeting women and girls.
Though federal prosecutors’ interest in interviewing the former prince and their MLAT request were previously known, the document itself is public for the first time. It provides the first confirmation that prosecutors had collected evidence of Mountbatten-Windsor’s sexual involvement with an Epstein victim.
A request for comment sent to Mountbatten-Windsor’s office wasn’t immediately answered. He has previously denied sexual assault allegations related to Epstein and Maxwell.
The document, dated April 3, 2020, came after a series of lengthy and testy exchanges in January of that year between a federal prosecutor and an attorney for Mountbatten-Windsor in which the attorney repeatedly rebuffed or ignored requests for an interview.
Prosecutors appear to have gathered less evidence regarding Mountbatten-Windsor’s possible involvement with Nygard, whom they eventually charged later that year with sex trafficking and racketeering. They wrote that Andrew had traveled at least once to Nygard Cay in the Bahamas, where Nygard allegedly conducted his sex-trafficking operation, and sought to question Mountbatten-Windsor about that visit or others.
Nygard is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Canada for sexual assault and the U.S. sex-trafficking case against him remains pending. Nygard’s lawyer has previously said his client would ultimately be vindicated. His lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The files also hinted at possible fresh legal trouble for the British royal. In an email dated Nov. 10, 2025, a detective chief inspector from the Metropolitan Police in London reached out to the FBI to say the police are reviewing allegations concerning Mountbatten-Windsor’s “activities” with a person, the name of whom is redacted, and “efforts he has allegedly made to get information about her through his protection officers.”
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.
DOJ threatened Amazon with contempt
Just days before Epstein’s suicide in jail in 2019, the Justice Department threatened to ask a judge to hold Amazon in contempt after the company failed to produce documents related to the probe into the disgraced financier.
“Amazon’s response to the attached grand jury subpoena is overdue by several weeks,” an investigator, whose identity is redacted, wrote in an Aug. 1 email to the company. “The FBI has emailed and left messages with your legal department several times over the past weeks without a response. Please respond promptly to resolve Amazon’s non-compliance. Otherwise we will initiate contempt proceedings regarding your failure to comply with valid legal process.”
It’s unclear precisely what records the Justice Department was seeking from Amazon — the subpoena itself was not immediately accessible in the latest tranche of documents — but it appeared to relate to email communications from figures connected to the Epstein investigation.
The email suggests the subpoena for records was initially issued on June 24, 2019. In an Aug. 5, 2019, exchange, FBI investigators and Justice Department prosecutors lamented the difficulty of getting a response from the company.
A day later, it appeared that Amazon cobbled together a response to the subpoena, which the Justice Department described as woefully inadequate.
“We note with concern that the Subpoena responses list more than 300 descriptions of responsive materials as ‘REDACTED,’” one of the unidentified investigators wrote on Aug. 6, 2019. “Please immediately produce either a complete response to the Subpoena without the redaction of nonprivileged responsive materials, or provide a legal basis for your refusal to do so.”
The investigators also said Amazon appeared to only produce records related to two email addresses out of the nine identified in the subpoena.
Spokespeople for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Investigators discuss apparent photo of Trump and Maxwell on Bannon’s phone
After Epstein’s death in 2019, the Justice Department’s pursuit of Maxwell intersected with another high-profile criminal probe: the investigation into Bannon and his associates for alleged misuse of donations to a charity supporting construction of Trump’s border wall.
Trump pardoned Bannon for the alleged offenses on the final day of his first term. But prosecutors continued to pursue the case against his associates — and in June 2021, one of them noticed something in the data obtained from Bannon’s phone that seemed relevant to the Epstein-related probe.
“As I was going through the images from that phone, I found an image of Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell on Bannon’s phone,” an investigator, whose identity is redacted, wrote. “Please let me know if you’d like anything further done with this.” The image itself is not visible in the exchange.
A few days later, a response from another unidentified investigator came back: “Thanks very much for flagging — no need to do anything with this one, but thanks for letting me know, and do let me know if anything else pops up.”
Bannon, who maintained an association with Epstein and once interviewed him, had already come up in Justice Department emails prior to the discovery of the Trump photo. In April 2021, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan flagged “a number of text messages between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein on Bannon’s iPhone 7.”
Bannon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He had previously not responded to POLITICO’s requests for comments about Epstein but in July said at a Turning Point USA summit that “Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things, not just individuals but also institutions.”
DOJ dismisses as ‘fake’ a purported Epstein note to Larry Nassar referencing Trump
The documents released Tuesday also included what appeared to be a suicide note from Epstein to another high-profile sex offender, Larry Nassar.
Soon after the document release, the Justice Department cast doubt on the authenticity of the six-year-old letter, saying officials are “currently looking into the validity of this alleged letter from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar and we will follow up as soon as possible.”
Less than two hours later, DOJ officials said in a statement “the FBI has confirmed this alleged letter from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar is FAKE. The fake letter was received by the jail, and flagged for the FBI at the time.”
The two-page note is postmarked from Northern Virginia shortly after Epstein’s death in August 2019 and was returned by the Postal Service to the mailroom of the Manhattan detention center where Epstein died.
“As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home,” the letter says. It also appears to reference Trump’s lewd comments about women in an Access Hollywood interview that were unearthed during the 2016 campaign cycle.
Nassar, a former doctor for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team, was convicted in 2017 and 2018 of a series of sexual assaults on young athletes. He was once housed at the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson, where the letter is addressed, but was transferred to another prison before the letter’s postmark date.
Investigators asked for a handwriting analysis of the letter in 2020, released documents show, but DOJ said Tuesday the writing “does not appear to match” Epstein’s. In 2023, the Associated Press obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that referenced the letter but did not include its text.
Trump has denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes and has not been accused of wrongdoing linked to the convicted sex offender. The two men were friendly and socialized together in the 1990s and early 2000s, with Trump repeatedly flying on Epstein’s jet. However, Trump has said their relationship broke down decades ago over Epstein’s attempt to hire employees from Mar-a-Lago.
The newly released documents also include records showing that prosecutors preparing for the sex-trafficking trial of Maxwell in 2021 served a subpoena for employment records from Mar-a-Lago. The focus of the subpoena is redacted from the records the Justice Department posted.
Asked about the newly released records, a White House spokesperson pointed to a Justice Department statement Tuesday that said some of the Epstein materials contain false claims about Trump.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the statement said.
Aaron Pellish and Adam Wren contributed to this report.
