More than two weeks after the deadline for the release of all files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, top Department of Justice officials have disclosed that more than 99% percent of the materials have not yet been made public.\u00a0Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote in an update to a federal judge who oversaw the case against Epstein\u2019s case on Monday that over two million documents \u201cremain in various phases of review and redaction.\u201d\u00a0According to the letter, the DOJ has released roughly 12,285 documents to date, totalling around 125,575 pages of material.The officials reiterated that the review of the remaining files will require an enormous undertaking, estimating that around 400 lawyers \u201cwill dedicate all or a substantial portion of their workday to comply\u201d with the law Congress passed in November to compel the material\u2019s release, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, for the \u201cnext few weeks ahead.\u201d\u00a0They added that more than 100 \u201cspecially trained document analysts with experience handling sensitive victim materials\u201d from the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be assisting.Read more: What Is\u2014and Isn\u2019t\u2014in the Newly Released Epstein FilesThe DOJ has faced criticism from lawmakers and Epstein survivors over its failure to release all the files by the Dec. 19 deadline. On that date, the department released an initial, incomplete batch of records, saying that hundreds of thousands more were expected to come in the weeks ahead. More documents and images were released in additional batches in the following days.On Dec. 24, the DOJ said it had identified over a million additional documents potentially related to Epstein that would require additional time to review. In the Monday update, the officials said that a \u201cmeaningful portion\u201d of the documents appeared to be duplicative but noted that they will need to undergo a \u201cdeduplication\u201d process.\u00a0The officials again attributed the delay in releasing the files in part to the need to take steps to protect the victims referenced within them. The law allows for some information to be redacted from the files in order to protect the identities of victims, among other circumstances.A group of Epstein survivors in December, however, denounced the DOJ\u2019s initial releases of the files for leaving what they described as \u201cnumerous victim identities\u201d unredacted, even while elsewhere making \u201cabnormal and extreme redactions\u201d to the materials\u2014which included a number of fully blacked out pages\u2014\u201cwith no explanation.\u201dRead more: What\u2019s Redacted in the New Epstein Files and What Isn\u2019tSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday also criticized the DOJ for failing to submit a report to Congress including a list of political figures named in the files.\u201cTrump\u2019s DOJ has failed to submit a report to Congress, which is required to include a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, without redactions,\u201d he wrote in a post on X. \u201cWhat are they trying to hide?\u201dThe Democratic lawmaker accused the department of \u201clawlessness\u201d and said he would \u201cdo everything in my power to ensure all the files come out.\u201dAfter months of Republican pushback, the Epstein Files Transparency Act was ultimately passed by both houses of Congress in mid-November with broad bipartisan support and\u00a0 signed by Trump after the President reversed his own opposition to the measure and urged Republicans to support it.\u00a0It is unclear when the next trove of documents will be released by the DOJ, or how long it will take for all files to be released.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than two weeks after the deadline for the release of all files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}