The day after Nicolás Maduro, the ousted Venezuelan president, was arraigned in federal court in Manhattan on Jan. 5, the prosecutors handling his case faced a daunting task.
But their challenge had nothing to do with the narco-terrorism charges against Mr. Maduro. Like almost every lawyer in the U.S. attorney’s office where they work, they had been directed to turn their attention to reviewing Justice Department files related to the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
That same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a letter that nearly two-thirds of the 200 lawyers in that office, the Southern District of New York, were spending all or most of their workday reviewing Epstein files. A law passed in November required the department to release all of the materials — millions of documents — nearly a month ago after redacting the names of the victims of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme. To date, only a fraction of the mass of documents have been released.
But Ms. Bondi’s letter, sent to a judge, understated the number of lawyers in the office who have been pulled into the process, the people familiar with the matter said. Nearly every lawyer there, except those handling a current trial or on vacation, were participating in the effort, the people said. The letter anticipated that the review would last for a few weeks, and no definitive end has been announced.
In a second letter filed Thursday night, Ms. Bondi said the Justice Department had made “substantial progress and remains focused on releasing materials” promptly under the new law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, while protecting the privacy of the victims.
Ms. Bondi said that to date, more than 500 department employees were involved, and that the Southern District alone had devoted “significant resources,” with about 80 additional lawyers from the department’s Criminal Division also taking part.
A spokesman for Jay Clayton, the Southern District’s U.S. attorney, declined to comment this week on the review.
The case against Mr. Maduro is the highest profile matter in the Southern District. The former Venezuelan leader was seized this month in a U.S. military operation and brought back to Manhattan to face charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and other counts. He has pleaded not guilty.
At least five prosecutors are assigned to the case, and at the arraignment, the judge set the next hearing for March 17, presumably leaving the lawyers some time to work on the Epstein documents. But their assignment to that work underscores the political and legal imperative driving the review.
The diversion of resources also seems to be affecting other cases in the office. This week, on the eve of a major sex-trafficking trial involving two celebrity real estate brokers and their brother, a defense lawyer complained that the government had not yet finished reviewing seized evidence for materials that had to be turned over to the defendants.
“They have half of the U.S. attorney’s office on the Epstein files,” the lawyer, Teny Geragos, said. “We have a trial starting next week, your honor.”
The judge, Valerie E. Caproni, suggested that “perhaps a few people could be sprung from Epstein obligations” to fulfill the government’s responsibilities in the sex-trafficking case.
“That seems like a reasonable step,” the judge added, “given the fact that these people are on trial and Epstein is dead.”
Ms. Bondi said in her earlier letter that more than 100 specially trained F.B.I. document analysts with experience handling sensitive victim materials were also assisting in the review.
In addition to Ms. Bondi, both letters were signed by her deputy, Todd Blanche, and Mr. Clayton.
The earlier letter said that more than two million documents related to the investigation of Mr. Epstein and his longtime co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, still needed to be reviewed and redacted.
There could be pressure to devote even more resources to the effort if a federal judge in Manhattan agrees to a recent request by two members of Congress who wrote the new law that required the files’ release.
The representatives, Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, told Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, who has overseen the Maxwell case, that the department’s delay in releasing the files was a “flagrant violation” of the law. They asked that the judge appoint an independent monitor to assure that the department complied.
That request is still pending, and Ms. Bondi made clear in her letter last week that the challenge remained prodigious.
“While the commitment of department personnel to this effort has been substantial in breadth and impressive in effort,” Ms. Bondi said, “substantial work remains to be done.”
William K. Rashbaum is a Times reporter covering municipal and political corruption, the courts and broader law enforcement topics in New York.
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