Palm Beach, Florida - President Donald Trump thinks that releasing the Epstein files may ruin the reputation of people who "innocently met" the convicted sex offender in the past.

Trump, in his first comments since the Justice Department began releasing the files on Friday, also dismissed the Jeffrey Epstein scandal as a mere distraction.

"This whole thing with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has," he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago home.

Former president Bill Clinton featured prominently in the first batch of photos from the Epstein files released by the Justice Department and Trump was asked for his reaction.

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"I like Bill Clinton. I've always gotten along with Bill Clinton. I hate to see photos come out of him," he said, calling it a "terrible thing."

"There's photos of me too," Trump admitted. "Everybody was friendly with this guy."

"But you probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago, and they're highly respected bankers and lawyers and others."

The 79-year-old claimed a "lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein."

"But they're in a picture with him because he was at a party and you ruin a reputation of somebody," he insisted.

The Trump administration is coming under mounting pressure over the heavily redacted and partial nature of last week's release, with Senate Democrats moving to sue over what they say is a violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.