Donald Trump’s White House is scaling up a campaign of intimidation, obfuscation and distraction in its desperate attempt to quash demands to release more of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The Attorney General, Pam Bondi, claimed in a letter to members of Congress on Saturday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had released all of the documents required to be shared under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
However, the department previously said it identified over six million potential files. So far, it has published less than four million, many of which were redacted.
Under the act passed last year, members of Congress have secured access to the unredacted files, and are now combing through to find out as-yet unknown names of Epstein associates.
Some lawmakers accused the DOJ of an “outrageous abuse of power” after it tracked their research activity as they dug through unredacted materials connected to the paedophile financier.
That came on top of criticism from Trump’s own party, with one Republican lawmaker appearing to suggest he feared being assassinated for pushing for the files’ release, and another describing the redactions as “one of the greatest cover-ups in American history”.
No more files to see?
On 30 January, the DOJ released three million pages of documents relating to Epstein, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying this marked “the end” of the review process.
Blanche said some files had been withheld for various reasons such as depictions of child abuse and jeopardising ongoing investigations.
US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press conference at the US Department of justice on 30 January 2026 in WashingtonDC (Photo: Alex Wroblewski / AFP via Getty Images)However, victims and lawmakers have accused the DOJ of keeping back millions of documents for no reason other than to protect the names and reputations of those who may have been involved with Epstein.
One analysis carried out by Channel 4 News last week stated that potentially just 2 per cent of the information the FBI had retrieved from Epstein’s estate had been released by the DOJ.
Christopher Featherstone, associate lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of York, said: “I would say I think this is an administration that wants to release elements of the files but only as a means of distraction. They are not willing to release files that would seriously implicate people they are close to.”
He described Bondi’s claim that all files had now been released as “purposeful”, labelling it as an attempt to feign transparency.
Featherstone added: “Pam Bondi’s quote will be trusted in the far right of America. I would imagine it would be taken uncritically on a network such as Fox News, whereas mainstream media will point out that far less than 5 per cent of the files have actually been released.”
The ‘mysterious redactions protecting abusers’
Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, accused the DOJ of making “mysterious redactions” that hid the names of abusers and identified victims: “There were tons of completely unnecessary redactions, in addition to the failure to redact the names of victims, and so that was troubling to us,” he said after viewing unredacted files.
Representative Jamie Raskin speaks as Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on 11 February 2026, in Washington DC (Photo: AP Photo / Tom Brenner)David Dunn, professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham, said: “We know that a lot of the victims say that conversations they have had with the FBI have not been released as part of the files. We also know that the documentation surrounding Epstein’s initial conviction is missing.”
He said it was “highly unusual” for the DOJ to say there were no grounds for further prosecution, given the millions of documents available on the topic.
He also pointed to the significance of the dates of the files released. “Conveniently, all the documents released are ones after there was a rupture between Epstein and Trump,” he said. “What we don’t have are the 10 years before that when they were buddies; all that data exists given Epstein’s meticulous records, so the framing in which the DOJ has done this has deliberately been partial and constructed in a way which doesn’t allow scrutiny of Trump.”
Dunn described the department’s approach to releasing the documents as “political”.
He said: “You could say they have released a lot of names of victims in a way of saying, ‘If you complain, you will be outed and will have to live with the consequences of that.’”
Epstein and Trump in 1997 (Photo: Davidoff Studios/Getty)At the weekend the DOJ also sent an extensive list of high-profile people referenced in the files – even if they had no interactions with Epstein – to the leaders of the Senate and House Judiciary committees, with no context.
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who co-wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act, said the DOJ was “purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email”, through its conduct.
Featherstone described this strategy as a clear example of “flooding the zone”, which pushes the attention of the media and politicians in other directions to drown out claims against Trump, whose name appears often in the Epstein files. Although the two men associated with each other in the 1990s and early 2000s, Trump says they fell out in 2005 and denies any awareness of his crimes at the time they were in contact.
Intimidation and threats
Members of Congress have accused the administration of intimidation after it tracked their study of the Epstein files.
Raskin and other members of the House claimed the DOJ had attempted to “obstruct and intimidate” members of Congress by monitoring their searches of the unredacted copies of the files.
Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on 11 February 2026, in Washington DC (Photo: AP Photo / J Scott Applewhite)Raskin said members had to travel to an annex to view one of four DOJ-owned computers and navigate “a clunky and convoluted software system” to read the files, while DOJ watch them over their shoulders. “It is the perfect set-up for [theDOJ] to spy on members’ review, monitoring, recording and logging every document we choose to pull up,” Raskin said.
Democrats said Bondi had been photographed at a congressional hearing last week with a list of the unredacted files that Democrat Pramila Jayapal, one of those questioning her, had reviewed in the facility.
“It is an outrage that [the DOJ] is tracking members’ investigative steps,” said Raskin, adding that he would ask the department’s inspector general to open an inquiry into “this outrageous abuse of power”.
The DOJ has confirmed that it monitors all Epstein file searches by lawmakers. Johnson described the move as a “brazen power grab” by the executive branch.
Featherstone said: “It’s very standard for members of Congress with relevant clearance to search files and not feel under such close scrutiny. It’s particularly scary and there’s maybe an intention from the administration to slightly intimidate.”
Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna arrive at offices of the Department of Justice on 9 February to review an unredacted version of the Epstein files (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)Mark Shanahan, associate professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, said the move by Bondi suggested that the administration wanted to be seen as a “threat”.
He said: “What we are seeing with Pam Bondi and this administration is a hostility towards Congress, rather than giving them due respect.”
Assassination jokes from Republican
One of the most extraordinary comments from a member of Congress was a tweet from Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who was instrumental alongside Khanna in getting the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed.
In response to a tweet appearing to joke that Massie’s push for releasing the files could make him a target for an assassination, he said: “I am not suicidal. I eat healthy food. The brakes on my car and truck are in good shape. I practice good trigger discipline and never point a gun at anyone, including myself. There are no deep pools of water on my farm and I’m a pretty good swimmer.”
Shanahan likened the statement to the kind of caution whistleblowers within Russia might exhibit before a possible assassination attempt. Many Russians, from senior businessmen to opposition figures, have been found dead from apparent suicide over the past couple of decades, often in mysterious circumstances.
I am not suicidal. I eat healthy food. The brakes on my car and truck are in good shape. I practice good trigger discipline and never point a gun at anyone, including myself. There are no deep pools of water on my farm and I’m a pretty good swimmer.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 13, 2026Richard Johnson, senior lecturer in US politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that while he assumed Massie’s post was somewhat humorous, it could imply an impending political death given Trump’s control over the GOP.
He said: “It speaks to a truth that pretty much every Republican who has crossed Trump has seen their political careers come to a swift end, with very few exemptions.”
Dunn added that Massie might fear a physical attack for breaking the party line. Trump previously mocked Representative Nancy Pelosi after her husband was attacked in their home in October 2022, while Senator Mark Kelly said he feared “increased threats” to his family’s safety after Trump accused him of “seditious behaviour, punishable by death”. Kelly’s wife, Gabrielle Giffords, survived an assassination attempt while she was in Congress in 2011.
Featherstone said: “[Massie] feeling concerned for his safety could be potentially more to do with the explosion of political violence in the States. There have been multiple attempts on the President’s life and of those in Congress’s lives as well as state representatives being murdered. The significant upswing in political violence could imply a threat from a random actor, rather than from the state.”
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