The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the so-called Epstein files, a court filing has revealed, as Democrats step up criticism of the Trump administration’s “lawlessness” for keeping records under seal.
The department conceded that only 12,285 documents, totalling 125,575 pages, relating to the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have been published to date, despite a federal law requiring the vast majority to be released by 19 December.
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, wrote a five-page update to Paul Engelmayer, the federal New York judge overseeing the case, on Monday, asserting that efforts to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims were a priority, and had slowed the process.
“There are more than two million documents potentially responsive to the Act that are in various phases of review,” she wrote in the letter co-signed by Todd Blanche, her deputy, and Jay Clayton, US attorney for the southern district of New York.
“This work has required and will continue to require substantial department resources.” She said about 400 justice department lawyers were supporting “efforts to comply”, along with 100 FBI document analysts trained in handling sensitive material.
Democrats, however, remain determined to press the justice department over the Epstein documents despite other stories such as the capture by US forces of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, dominating the news cycle.
“What are they trying to hide?” Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a post to X on Monday accusing the justice department of failing to submit a required unredacted list to Congress “of all government officials and politically exposed persons” named or referenced in the files.
“It’s been 17 DAYS since the Trump DOJ first broke the law and failed to release all the Epstein files. It’s been 14 DAYS since Trump’s DOJ released anything at all – with the DOJ doing everything in its power to delay and obfuscate.”
The releases so far, he said, were heavily redacted, and contained “none of the key documents, and no new information on the 10 alleged Epstein co-conspirators”.
He said: “The Trump DOJ’s lawlessness must stop. I will do everything in my power to ensure all the files come out.”
Blanche insisted last week that the department was committed to “transparency and protecting victims”, and that hundreds of people had sacrificed time over the holidays to work on the case.
“It truly is an all-hands-on-deck approach and we’re asking as many lawyers as possible to commit their time to review the documents that remain,” he said.
“Required redactions to protect victims take time but they will not stop these materials from being released.”
The department said before Christmas that federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the FBI had uncovered more than a million more documents not included in its initial review, and that it might need “a few more weeks” to comply with the law.
Ro Khanna, a Democratic California congressman, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said last month they were considering filing an inherent contempt lawsuit against Bondi in an effort to speed up the release.
Documents published in the first tranches of releases since 19 December have offered some insight into Epstein’s operation, facilitated by his friend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking, but no major new revelations.
Marina Lacerda, a victim of Epstein who met him when she was 14, spoke to the Guardian last month after the first batch of papers was released. She said she wanted the British former royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, a close friend of Epstein and Maxwell, to be “brought to justice” in the US.
One of the papers detailed alleged efforts by Mountbatten-Windsor, once known as Prince Andrew, to get Maxwell to fix him up with “inappropriate friends” while she sought “friendly and discreet and fun” girls for him. Mountbatten-Windsor has denied any illegal behavior.
