CNN Legal Analyst Suggests Epstein Victims Might Sue DOJ Over Nude Photos in Release

CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams suggested Monday that victims of Jeffrey Epstein may have recourse to sue the Justice Department over unredacted nude photos included in the latest files release but also outlets like The New York Times, who merely reported their existence.

The take came a day after the Times itself reported Sunday that it had discovered nearly 40 images of naked people in the 3.5 million file dump released by the DOJ on Friday while investigating. Those images, the newspaper reported, showed both “nude bodies and the faces of the people portrayed.” The newspaper did not publish the images but alerted the DOJ to their existence. Victims quoted for the article expressed anger that the images were made public by the DOJ.

On The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer raised the article and asked Williams whether the women in the images might “wind up suing” the DOJ.

The legal expert said not only did he “expect” that victims would sue the government for publishing the images but also warned that the Times could face a legal action too:

Absolutely. They do have a cause of action. So, again, what I was talking about earlier was potential criminal charges against defendants but this is a whole separate legal issue. What happens when an individual’s privacy rights are personal rights have been violated?

Number one, I would expect many of them to sue the Justice Department, and I would also think they might have something against The New York Times for putting that material out there. That’s a tougher one to win only on account of the Times is the media organization and its First Amendment right to publish information in its possession. But I absolutely think that there might be an avenue for them to file a private lawsuit there, too.

So certainly there is some measure of recourse for survivors. It’s just not, I think, the closure that would come from for many for seeing those criminal charges that we were talking about before.

Watch above via CNN.

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