More than 2 million files that may be related to the case of late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein are under review, with only a few thousand having been inspected and made public, the Justice Department revealed late Monday.
In a court filing, the DOJ confirmed it had produced 12,285 documents totaling about 125,575 pages of material on its Epstein Library webpage since Dec. 19.
Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law in mid-November, the DOJ had until Dec. 19, 2025, to complete its review and furnish all records related to Epstein in its possession.
However, the Trump administration said it would not be able to meet that deadline due to the sheer volume of material.
“More than 2 million documents identified as potentially responsive to the Act remain in various phases of review and redaction,” Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton informed US District Judge Paul Engelmeyer on behalf of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche.
On Christmas Eve, officials revealed that more than 1 million documents potentially linked to Epstein had been found and that it was going to take a few more weeks to vet them.
“Based on broad initial reviews of those documents, the Department expects that a meaningful portion of the documents are copies of (or largely duplicative of) documents that had already been collected by the Department for review but nonetheless still need to undergo a process of processing and deduplication,” Clayton explained.
The filing confirmed that more than 400 lawyers have been drafted from across the department to “dedicate all or a substantial portion of their workday” to going through the files — including more than 125 based in the Southern District of New York alone.
“The goal of all these efforts is to facilitate the release of materials under the Act promptly and to continue to protect victim privacy to the maximum extent practicable as contemplated by the Act and consistent with Department policy and the Court’s Order,” Clayton stressed.
The DOJ has refrained from saying when it anticipates completing the file release, with Monday’s letter saying the process would continue “for the next few weeks.”
Here’s the latest on the release of the Epstein files
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the authors of the Epstein Files Transparancy Act, have claimed that the administration broke the law by missing the Dec. 19 deadline and by turning over files that are overly redacted.
The DOJ claims the redactions are necessary due to the obligation to protect victims and conceal critical information pertaining to ongoing court cases.
Last month, several amateur sleuths discovered a way to uncensor some of the heavily redacted files by copying them from Adobe Acrobat and then pasting them into a word processor. The Post verified the redaction mishap.
