A huge new tranche of files on millionaire financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has revealed new details of his communications with the wealthy and powerful, some not long before his death in 2019, including a former Australian prime minister.

The US Justice Department said it was disclosing more than three million pages of documents, as well as thousands of videos and photos, as required by a law passed by Congress.

Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019 and found dead in his cell just over a month later.

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The latest batch of documents includes emails between investigators about Epstein’s death, including an investigator’s observation that his final communication does not look like a suicide note.

New York City’s medical examiner called the death a suicide.

The records also detail a trick that jail staffers used to fool the media gathered outside while Epstein’s body was removed: they used boxes and sheets to create what appeared to be a body and loaded it into a white van labelled as belonging to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Democrats are asking the US Justice Department to let lawmakers review unredacted file versions. (AP PHOTO) Credit: AAP

The reporters followed the van when it left the jail, not knowing that Epstein’s actual body was loaded into a black vehicle, which departed “unnoticed,” according to the interview notes.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pressing the US Justice Department to let lawmakers review unredacted versions of the latest Epstein files release as soon as Sunday.

It comes after former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd’s name was part of the latest drop of documents.

In a statement, Rudd’s office strongly denied any wrongdoing, with saying “no introduction ever took place between the men and there was no evidence of direct contact between them.”

The statement added that most mentions of Rudd relating to Epstein “appear in passing or a people that are known to both of them trying to set up meetings between them”.

Rudd’s name appears in a 2014 calendar invite to lunch, with Epstein emailing former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers that “Kevin will be on the phone.”

In a further development, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to travel to the US to testify before Congress after the latest allegations against the former prince.

“In terms of testifying I have always said anybody who has got information should be prepared to share that information,” he told reporters. “Epstein’s victims have to be the first priority.”

“Whether there should be an apology, that’s a matter for Andrew.”

Elsewhere in the sprawling investigation, an adviser to the Slovakian government who previously served as the country’s foreign minister announced his resignation, the TASR news agency reported on Saturday.

Miroslav Lajcak submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Robert Fico, who accepted the decision while regretting the loss of an experienced foreign policy adviser, TASR said.

The news portal 360tka had earlier published chat logs allegedly from the latest files released on Friday by the US Department of Justice, showing that Epstein offered Lajcak young women.

Lajcak rejected the allegations, saying he had never spoken to Epstein about women and had never organised any meetings for him.

Lajcak served as Slovakia’s foreign minister from 2009-10 and again from 2012-20.

From September 2017 to September 2018, he served as president of the United Nations General Assembly.

The files also cast a negative light on Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit.

According to media reports on Saturday, the 52-year-old is mentioned several hundred times in the documents.

Particular attention was drawn to email correspondence concerning a visit to Epstein’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2013.

The palace confirmed to broadcaster NRK that Mette-Marit had borrowed Epstein’s house through a mutual friend.

The crown princess stayed there for four days with a friend, according to Guri Varpe, spokeswoman for the Norwegian royal family.

She also met Epstein during this visit, Varpe said.

However, Mette-Marit never stayed on the multimillionaire’s private island, Little Saint James.

On Friday evening, the crown princess apologized.

She had “not checked Epstein’s background more thoroughly,” she explained in a statement released to several Norwegian media outlets.

She said she had shown “poor judgement” and regretted “having had any contact with Epstein at all”.

“It’s just embarrassing,” she continued.

She expressed her “deep sympathy” and solidarity with the victims of the sex offender.

with DPA and Reuters