What’s Going on With the Epstein Files? A Month After Deadline, the Vast Majority of Materials Remain Unreleased
More than a month has passed since the deadline for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all its files related to the investigations into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And while the department has publicly shared thousands of documents since that date, those releases account for only a fraction of the materials it has in its possession—leaving the vast majority of the so-called “Epstein files” still unreleased.
Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in November, the DOJ was required to release all the Epstein files by Dec. 19. The department began releasing materials that day, but the Trump Administration admitted that it wouldn’t share all the documents by the deadline, claiming that the scale of redactions needed to protect victims’ identities would delay the full release. Since then, the department has released a few batches of documents related to the Epstein case. But it has been weeks since the most recent of those batches was made public, and earlier this month, top DOJ officials revealed that more than two million documents have yet to be shared, meaning that less than 1% of the Epstein files have been released.
The partial releases—and the heavy redactions made to many of the documents that have been made public—have sparked outcry from politicians, survivors of Epstein’s abuse, and the public. Days after the December deadline, lawmakers threatened to take action against the Trump Administration for not releasing all the documents in the case, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slamming the DOJ for what he called a “blatant disregard of the law.”
Here’s what to know about the latest developments in the situation.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California—the two lawmakers who co-wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act—requested an independent expert to ensure that the DOJ complied with the federal law and released all its Epstein materials. But on Wednesday, a federal judge denied the request, saying that he didn’t have the jurisdiction to oversee the DOJ in this matter. (Read more from “What’s Going on With the Epstein Files? A Month After Deadline, the Vast Majority of Materials Remain Unreleased” HERE)
