DOJ: More Epstein Files Expected to Be Made Public in ‘Near Term’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) told two federal judges on Tuesday that files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be released in the “near term,” according to court papers filed in New York.

In the filing, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton told the judges that they would not be able to provide an exact date due to an “ongoing process” as well as “quality control” measures to redact the names of victims before the files are released to the public.

The DOJ last year was tasked with releasing files related to Epstein and longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell after Congress passed a law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, requiring the department to do so.

“The Department currently expects that it will complete these processes with respect to substantially all of the potentially responsive documents, including publication to the Epstein Library website, in the near term,” the court filing stated.

But the filing, addressed to U.S. District Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, stipulated that DOJ officials are “not able to provide a specific date at this time and cautions that its ongoing processes, including its quality control checks and document management system preparations, may require additional efforts to ensure the protection of victim-identifying information while complying with the broad demands of the Act.”

“The Department has reviewed and redacted, as appropriate, several millions of pages of materials identified in files maintained by the Department, the FBI, and the relevant U.S. Attorneys’ Offices,” the filing said, noting that the materials contain internal DOJ communications and information related to other investigations.

The materials are now under “manual review by hundreds of Department employees, in consultation with counsel for victims as well as the victims themselves, to mitigate and minimize the risk of disclosure of any victim-identifying information,” the court papers stated.

Epstein materials have been released in batches starting on Dec. 19, 2025, and in the days that followed, which drew criticism from the sponsors of the bill, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), as well as other House lawmakers.

In a post on X, Massie wrote that the initial release on Dec. 19 “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law” after it was signed by President Donald Trump in November.

The DOJ, on several occasions, has said that there is a significant number of documents to review before it’s released to the public.

“We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible,” the DOJ said last month. “Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks.”

Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution. In 2019, the DOJ charged him with sex trafficking before he was found dead in a New York jail cell, with his death being ruled a suicide.

Maxwell in 2021 was found guilty on child sex trafficking and other charges in association with the Epstein case. The following year, she received a 20-year prison sentence.

Reuters contributed to this report.