The Justice Department (DOJ) began releasing its trove of documents related to the many investigations of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, the deadline imposed by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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The law, signed by President Donald Trump last month, obligated the Justice Department to “make publicly available…all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein, his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, and other individuals named or referenced in federal investigations into the disgraced financier, within 30 days.
But the Trump Administration warned earlier that it would not release all the files it has in its possession on Friday, as required by law, blaming the delay on the scale of redactions it had to make to protect victims.
Read More: Trump Administration Says It Will Not Meet Deadline To Release All Epstein Files
“What we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story to the extent it needs to be protected is completely protected,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News on Friday, hours ahead of the release.
Several hundred thousand records are expected to be released over the course of the next few weeks, Blanche added.
Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees said Friday they were “examining all legal options” against the DOJ for failing to abide by the new law.
“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” the committees said in a press release. “The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ.”
The law Trump signed did not specify a penalty if the Trump Administration failed to comply within 30 days.
The delay in releasing all of the files is likely to prolong the spotlight on the government’s investigations into Epstein, which has plagued President Donald Trump throughout his second term. Trump and Epstein were friends for years and publicly pictured together several times. The President has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, and has long denied that he had any knowledge of Epstein’s actions.
Public interest in the so-called Epstein files has escalated dramatically in the last year after Trump and his closest allies, many of them now in high-level cabinet positions, appeared to back off a campaign promise to release all the documents.
Upon entering the White House for his second term, Trump started playing down the importance of the files, eventually calling the Epstein saga a “hoax.”
Survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring have spent years urging lawmakers to release the files, alleging that the failure to do so would amount to protecting the rich and influential figures who were linked to the late financier.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act directs the Justice Department to make public a broad collection of unclassified documents within 30 days, including flight logs, DOJ memos, internal correspondence, immunity deals, metadata, and more. The law permits redactions to protect the identities of victims, comply with rules governing grand jury secrecy, and avoid releasing illegal pornographic material.
The legislation was overwhelmingly passed by both chambers of Congress last month despite fervent opposition from Trump and concerns from House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans that the bill, as written, still might unfairly expose individuals not accused of wrongdoing.
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