DOJ admits to releasing less than 1% of the Epstein files so far

More than two weeks after a court-ordered deadline to release the Epstein files, the Justice Department acknowledged Monday that it has barely scratched the surface.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, DOJ officials acknowledge that they’ve only released 12,285 documents so far—about 125,575 pages in total. But that’s less than 1% of the materials held by the federal government, with more than 2 million more still sitting in various stages of review and redaction.

“While the commitment of Department personnel to this effort has been substantial in breadth and impressive in effort, substantial work remains to be done,” DOJ officials write in their letter.

Newsweek estimated that, even if every document currently under review were to eventually be disclosed, the process could take more than eight years. It’s unclear how Newsweek reached that conclusion, and no other major news outlets have suggested that it would take that long for the full cache of documents to be released.

The letter, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, says that more than 400 lawyers and 100 “specially trained document analysts” are now devoting all or most of their time to the review.

The court filing follows a December order from Engelmayer allowing the release of grand jury materials tied to the 2021 sex-trafficking trial and conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell.

But even with that green light, progress has been slow. As of late December, the DOJ had identified roughly 1 million FBI documents that had not been reviewed, many of which were duplicates. And Monday’s filing confirms that the amount of unreleased material is even greater.

The sluggish pace has fueled mounting criticism of the Trump administration, which faces a statutory mandate passed in November requiring the full Epstein file trove to be released by Dec. 19. 

The DOJ did meet the deadline with a document dump, but it quickly drew criticism from lawmakers and victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s, who said that the release was both incomplete and heavily redacted. It also raised eyebrows for what it later deleted, including photographs that featured President Donald Trump.

One Epstein victim described the initial release as “a slap in our faces.” 

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who introduced the disclosure legislation alongside GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, accused the DOJ of “selective concealment.”

On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer added his voice to the growing frustration.

“We don’t even truly know how many more files there are to be released,” he wrote on X. “The Trump DOJ’s lawlessness must stop. I will do everything in my power to ensure all the files come out.”

Trump has not been accused of participating in Epstein’s criminal conduct, but his long relationship with Epstein has been well documented. Trump has said that the two knew each other in Palm Beach and fell out in the mid-2000s, citing a real-estate dispute and Epstein’s recruitment of staff from Mar-a-Lago, among other things.

According to The Washington Post, DOJ officials have said that they hope to complete the release by Jan. 20. But members of Congress who pushed the law say that key records remain undisclosed. 

According to Monday’s letter, each document must be evaluated for relevance under the statute, scrubbed to protect victims’ identities, and reviewed again if victims or their family members request further redactions.

Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019 and died later that year in custody, in a death ruled a suicide. Before his death, the federal government had concluded that Epstein spent decades abusing and trafficking dozens of girls.

The longer the remaining files stay tucked away, the longer his victims are denied a full reckoning—and the more protection from public scrutiny is awarded to Epstein’s associates.