The US Justice Department has disclosed that it still has 5.2 million pages of files linked to Jeffrey Epstein to examine, according to an internal government document seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The scale of the review has prompted the department to enlist around 400 lawyers from multiple offices to complete the process, which is expected to continue through late January.
The document suggests that the sheer volume of material will delay the full public release of the Epstein files well beyond the December 19 deadline set by Congress under a recently passed transparency law. That law requires all Epstein-related records to be made public, with limited redactions to protect victims.
Neither the White House nor the Justice Department immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for comment regarding the delay.
The release of the documents was ordered by the Trump administration following congressional approval of the transparency legislation last month. The files relate to criminal investigations of Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who had social ties to President Donald Trump during the 1990s. Trump has maintained that their relationship ended in the mid-2000s and that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual crimes.
According to the document, lawyers from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, the FBI, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York are being deployed to assist with the review. The 400-attorney figure is more precise — and potentially far larger — than earlier estimates provided by the department.
The review period is scheduled to run from January 5 to January 23. To encourage participation, department leadership is offering telework arrangements and time-off incentives. Attorneys involved are expected to dedicate three to five hours daily, reviewing roughly 1,000 documents per day, the document said.
Last week, the Justice Department revealed it had identified more than one million additional documents potentially connected to Epstein, further expanding the scope of the review.
So far, the limited disclosures released to the public have been heavily redacted, drawing criticism from some Republican lawmakers. The slow pace and lack of transparency have done little to ease political pressure, as the controversy threatens to impact the party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The bipartisan law passed by Congress mandates the disclosure of all Epstein-related files, despite months of resistance from Trump to keep the records sealed. While redactions are permitted to safeguard victims, the statute required the complete release of documents by December 19.
Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 on charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and was later charged by federal prosecutors in 2019 with sex trafficking. He died later that year in a New York jail while awaiting trial, in a death that authorities ruled a suicide.
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