If President Donald Trump sought to use Friday’s Epstein file dump to deflect attention from his own relationship with the late sex offender, as critics allege, he may have succeeded. Since the release, the public gaze has been fixed not on Trump but on one of his great ideological foes — Bill Clinton.

The former president features in many of the photographs related to Jeffrey Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, that were released by the justice department on Friday under a law signed by Trump last month.

Trump, who himself enjoyed a well-publicised friendship with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, had long sought to keep the documents sealed. But his team has since appeared to recognise the political benefit of using them to tarnish the reputation of a prominent Democrat.