(WASHINGTON) — After years of legal battles and online speculation, the Justice Department on Friday is set to release what a top DOJ official says are “several hundred thousand” documents from the investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose connection to the rich and powerful and 2019 death by suicide has generated scores of conspiracy theories.

The DOJ faces a Friday deadline for the release of all remaining Epstein files after Congress last month passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act following the blowback the administration received seeking the release of the materials.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an interview Friday morning on Fox and Friends, said, “I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today … and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more.”  

Several Democratic lawmakers, responding in the afternoon to Blanche’s comments, objected to only a partial release of the files Friday.

Blanche, in his Fox appearance, said, “The most important thing that the attorney general has talked about, that [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has talked about, is that we protect victims, and so what we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected.”

The Epstein Files Act says the Justice Department “may withhold or redact” the identities of Epstein’s victims, and contains exemptions that would allow the DOJ to withhold records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”

Blanche said “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter.

“Those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche said.

He further suggested in the interview that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims.

When asked whether the American public should expect any additional criminal cases to come in the wake of the release of the files, Blanche said, “Look, as the president directed, it’s still being investigated, and I expect that will continue to happen. So we, as of today, there’s no new charges coming but, but we are investigating.”

President Donald Trump recently directed the Justice Department to investigate high-profile Democrats associated with Epstein, a task that Attorney General Pam Bondi then referred to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  

The Justice Department and FBI announced in July that they would be releasing no additional Epstein files, after several top officials — including Patel and outgoing FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — had, prior to joining the administration, accused the government of shielding information regarding the Epstein case.

The Senate subsequently voted to approved the Epstein transparency bill passed by the House, after which President Donald Trump signed it into law.

Critics of Trump have speculated about the degree to which the president, who had a friendship with Epstein until they had a falling out around 2004, appears in the Epstein files, while Trump has accused several well-known Democrats of having ties to the disgraced financier.

“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote on social media after signing the bill.

Epstein owned two private islands in the Virgin Islands and large properties in New York City, New Mexico and Palm Beach, Florida, where he came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his seaside home for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for sex crimes charges after reaching a controversial non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.

In 2019, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Epstein on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.

Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.

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(NEW YORK) — Two elite Northeast institutions of higher education have been rocked by horrific acts of gun violence, just days apart.

In the first incident, two people were killed and nine were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University, when a gunman opened fire on the Rhode Island campus, officials said.

Two days later, some 50 miles away in neighboring Massachusetts, an esteemed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was killed in a shooting at his home, officials said.

Following a dayslong manhunt, authorities identified the suspect in both shootings as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown graduate student, who attended the school some 25 years ago. Valente, a Portuguese national, and the slain MIT professor both attended the same physics engineering program at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, the school confirmed to ABC News.

Officials have not yet provided a motive for the back-to-back shootings that left residents of parts of New England on edge for days.

Here’s how the tragic shootings unfolded.

Nov. 26-Nov. 30

Valente, who is believed to have lived in Florida, rents a hotel room in Boston, according to federal officials.

Dec. 1

Valente rents a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates from a car rental agency in Boston and then drives to the vicinity of Brown University in Providence, where the vehicle is seen “intermittently” through Dec. 12, according to federal officials.

Dec. 13

A person of interest in the Brown shooting — subsequently believed to be the suspect, Valente — is seen in surveillance footage walking through a residential neighborhood near the campus, beginning around 2 p.m., in images and footage released by the FBI. But police have said they believe he had been around the Brown campus as early as 10 a.m. that day “casing out the area.” The individual is seen dressed from head to toe in dark clothing, including wearing a surgical mask over his face.

Around 2:16 p.m., an unknown person — later identified as a man who introduced himself as John — is seen interacting with the person of interest, according to the arrest warrant affidavit for Valente.

The shooting at Brown occurs at 4:03 p.m. in a lecture hall in the school’s Barus & Holley Engineering building during a final exam review, according to authorities and school officials.

Just after the shooting, a security video captures the person of interest emerging onto Hope Street from what investigators described as “lot 42” on the Brown campus.

The last video in the FBI’s timeline shows the individual walking north on Hope Street at 4:07 p.m.

Valente returns to Massachusetts over the next day, where at some point he switches the plates on his rental car to an unregistered plate out of Maine, according to federal officials.

Dec. 14

A man initially thought to be a person of interest in the Brown shooting is detained at about 3:45 a.m. at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Providence, according to law enforcement sources and police, though that individual is released hours later without being charged.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha says during a late-night press conference that there had been evidence pointing to this individual, but that evidence “now points in a different direction.”

Dec. 15

Authorities release new images and video of the person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown and the FBI announces it is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the individual responsible.

That night, authorities respond to a residence in Brookline, Massachusetts, after receiving a report of a man shot at his home, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.

The victim is identified by the office as 47-year-old Nuno Loureiro, a Portugal native who is a faculty member in MIT’s departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics and the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Video surveillance captured Valente in the area of the professor’s apartment that evening, according to federal officials.

Following the shooting, Valente drives to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, which he had rented in November, according to federal officials.

Dec. 16

Loureiro is pronounced dead at an area hospital in the morning, according to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities release a new image and enhanced video of the person of interest sought in the Brown shooting.

Police received an anonymous tip in the investigation into the Brown shooting referencing a Reddit post in which the poster — later identified as John — called for police to “look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates,” according to the affidavit.

Dec. 17

A Brown University faculty member reports to state police seeing a suspicious vehicle in the area of the campus the morning of Dec. 11, describing it as a gray sedan with Florida plates, according to the affidavit.

Providence police announce they are seeking the public’s help in identifying and speaking to the unknown individual — later identified as John — “who was in proximity of the person of interest” in the Brown shooting.

John approaches Providence police officers at Brown University to report his interaction with the person of interest, according to the affidavit. He tells detectives that he saw the man approach a gray or silver sedan with a Florida license plate the afternoon of Dec. 13 at a location near Brown’s campus, according to the affidavit.

“John informed detectives that he recognized one of the images released to the press as the person he encountered that day, which prompted him to post on Reddit,” the affidavit states.

Detectives trace the vehicle to the one rented by Valente in Boston, according to the affidavit.

Dec. 18

A Rhode Island state court issues a state arrest warrant for Valente, charging him with two counts of murder and 23 felony counts of assault and felony firearms offenses in the Brown shooting.

While executing search warrants on the Salem storage unit facility shortly before 9 p.m., Valente is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a storage unit, authorities said.

During a late-night news conference, authorities identify the suspect in the Brown mass shooting as Valente and confirm he is believed to be the same man who gunned down Loureiro, saying the professor was the intended target.

Officials say investigators linked the Brown and MIT shootings through the vehicle, financial records and video footage.

ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky, Jon Haworth and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.

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