DOJ Won’t Meet Deadline To Release All Epstein Files, But Massive Document Dump Expected
The Justice Department will not release all the Jeffrey Epstein files on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News – despite a deadline signed into law by President Trump.
But he said hundreds of thousands of documents will be made available Friday, and more will be released in the coming weeks.
Why the delay? According to Blanche, the team needs time to redact names or identifying information of witnesses and victims in the documents for their protection.
Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill in November, which President Trump signed into law, giving the DOJ 30 days to share the files. That deadline is today, Friday, Dec. 19.
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The law allows the DOJ to redact certain details and gives the department 15 days to tell Congress why certain documents are withheld. Frustration is growing inside the DOJ, CNN reports, as lawyers have been rushing since Thanksgiving week to review documents that can exceed 1,000 pages each.
What about the photos? In recent weeks, House Democrats have released batches of photos from Epstein’s estate (not the DOJ files); but critics say those releases include cherry-picked images that show prominent figures — including President Trump, former President Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates — but do not indicate any illegal activity.
Below are some images from the latest photo dump on Thursday. They include photos of women’s bodies with handwritten lines from the novel “Lolita” — about a French literature professor’s obsession and victimization of a 12-year-old girl.
What the documents might show: Epstein was able to amass his millions in wealth — and get close with some of the most powerful people in the world — through fraud, manipulation, and lucky breaks, a The New York Times investigation found.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in a New York federal jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.