DOJ tells court it has more than 2M Epstein documents to review ahead of redacted release

The Department of Justice has admitted it still has more than 2 million documents relating to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to review, more than two weeks after the deadline set for their release by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The near-unanimous passage of the legislation through Congress in November prompted President Donald Trump to sign it into law, setting in motion a 30-day countdown for the publication of all DOJ files on Epstein.

The deadline arrived on December 19, with the DOJ posting a tranche of heavily redacted, context-lacking documents, followed by a second tranche four days later.

Now, in a five-page letter sent by Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to U.S. District Judge Paul A. Englemayer, updating him on the state of play, the prosecutor revealed there are still “more than 2 million documents potentially responsive to the act that are in various phases of review.”

Clayton said the DOJ has released 12,285 documents – totaling 125,575 pages – related to Epstein so far, meaning the public has seen less than one percent of the department’s holdings at this stage.

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He explained that the DOJ had recently unearthed another million documents that it had not previously factored into its calculations, adding that, although they appeared to be duplicates of files already seen, they would nevertheless “need to undergo a process of processing and deduplication.”

More than 400 DOJ attorneys and 100 FBI analysts are set to spend “the next few weeks” dedicating “all or a substantial portion of their workday” to examining the files, Clayton said.

It was reported last week that the department had put out a call for more help in reviewing and making redactions to its more than 5.2 million individual pages in the interest of safeguarding the sex offender’s victims, protecting national security, and preventing ongoing investigations from being compromised.

Clayton said the gradual release was necessary to prevent improper disclosures. He told Engelmayer that the review process involved uploading documents to a “data review platform,” conducting a manual search for victim information, redacting the documents, and a subsequent review by his office for “quality control.”

The initial release of files last month brought complaints and threats of legal action from lawmakers Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who had led the call to publish the information, and from Epstein’s victims, still seeking justice, who said the treatment of the material had been “unacceptable.”

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Among the information released thus far have been previously unseen photographs of Epstein with his former girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, pictures of famous public figures like Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Michael Jackson, and Sir Mick Jagger, as well as photocopies of the disgraced financier’s passports and internal FBI emails discussing aspects of his case.

Being mentioned in the files does not indicate wrongdoing.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have continued to complain about the delay, writing on X Monday: “The Epstein files production we received from the DOJ last month was both incomplete and overly redacted. Entire pages blacked out with ZERO explanation.

“A clear obstruction of justice for survivors and accountability for co-conspirators. We won’t stop until we get the truth.”

In another post, the group added: “There’s a lot going on in the world that’s important. And that includes our work on the Epstein files. We won’t forget, and we won’t be distracted.”

California Rep. Robert Garcia also appeared on MS NOW Monday evening and relayed the same message: “The Epstein files are at the center of Trump’s corruption at the DOJ. The American public wants the truth, and we won’t stop fighting until we get justice for the survivors.”