By Marshall Cohen, Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
(CNN) — The “Epstein files” saga will spill into 2026, despite a deadline last week to release all of the records.
Congress passed a law last month — with near-unanimous support — requiring the Justice Department to release all of its files about Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who was accused of abusing dozens of underage girls. Epstein died by suicide in 2019.
The so-called “Epstein files” are made of over 300 gigabytes of data, papers, videos, photographs and audio files that live within the FBI’s main electronic case management system and largely originate from the FBI’s two major investigations into Epstein, in Florida and New York, spanning decades.
The new transparency law gave the Justice Department a December 19 deadline to release all the records related to Epstein. The department has since published hundreds of thousands of files over the past week to a landing page on the DOJ website, dubbed the “Epstein Library.”
The records included on the Justice Department website include court records, responses to public records requests, and documents previously released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform.
But many of Epstein’s victims, as well as lawmakers from both parties, have criticized these releases for being incomplete and over-redacted. Others raised concerns about under-redacted portions that exposed at least one victim’s identity.
And then the Justice Department made a surprise announcement Wednesday that there are over a million more newly discovered documents potentially related to Epstein — and that they’ll take “weeks” to review and release them.
Trump appointees at the Justice Department say they’re acting in good faith to release as much material as fast as possible, while also going through the painstaking work of reviewing every file to make sure victims’ identifies are shielded, as required by the law.
The Justice Department didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment Friday.
Here’s what you need to know about the records that have already been released, how many files might come out in the next few weeks, and which documents to look out for in the new year.
How many records have been released so far?
The first release came Friday, December 19 — which was the deadline to release all of the records.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the time “several hundred thousand” documents would be posted to the “Epstein Library” website that day. In a post on X that day, the Justice Department said it was “releasing a massive tranche of new documents,” and took a swing at the Obama and Biden administrations for not releasing these same files.
The Department continued to post records into the early hours of Saturday, December 20.
Another larger trove of records was posted on Tuesday, December 23. The Justice Department said this contained nearly “30,000 more pages.” That was the most recent release.
It’s important to remember that back in November, the House Oversight Committee separately released about 23,000 pages of Epstein-related documents that it got from his estate, and has followed that up with some additional releases, with more potentially to come. The previously released records from the House were among those re-posted to the new Justice Department website.
What has been released so far?
The “Epstein Library” clearinghouse is broken down into four categories.
One category is “Court Records,” which contains already-public filings from more than 50 civil and criminal cases related to Epstein and his now-incarcerated associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Other categories include “Freedom of Information Act,” which contain documents released over the years by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies through public records requests. There’s also a category with a link to the House Oversight disclosures.
But the key category is “DOJ Disclosures,” which contains most of the new material.
This is where we learned about the 2021 subpoena to Mar-a-Lago before Maxwell’s trial and the email from federal prosecutors about Trump flying on Epstein’s jet in the 1990s. It’s also where we saw new photos of former President Bill Clinton hanging out with Epstein, and swimming in a pool Maxwell and another woman whose face is redacted.
(Trump and Clinton deny any wrongdoing. Neither man has been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing or charged with any crimes in connection with Epstein.)
That category also included a handwritten letter purportedly signed by “J. Epstein” and addressed to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar, which included crude references to Trump. The lewd note went viral almost as soon as it was released Tuesday, but by the end of the day, the Justice Department announced that the document was fake.
One reporter asked on X why the DOJ would release a known fake document. The DOJ account responded that the law requires it to release all documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. “Are you suggesting we break the law?” the post said.
How much more is out there?
On December 19, the day of the first document drop, Blanche said, “I expect several hundred thousand more” files to be released in the future. A Justice Department “fact sheet” posted on Sunday, December 21, stated that there were still “hundreds of thousands of pages of material to release.”
The Justice Department’s leadership had asked Tuesday, two days before Christmas, for career prosecutors in Florida to volunteer over the “next several days” to help redact the Epstein files.
But the bombshell came on Christmas Eve. That’s when the DOJ announced that its Manhattan office, and the FBI, “uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.”
In its announcement, the Justice Department pleaded for patience, saying “We have lawyers working around the clock,” but that, “due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks,” before all of the new documents are posted.
That drew bipartisan anger on Capitol Hill, and from the community of Epstein survivors.
Some asked how so many new files could be discovered, one month after the law was passed, and ten months after Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the FBI to “deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office” — and set a February 28 deadline.
“From the very beginning, as we’ve said, this has been a disaster,” James Marsh, an attorney for Epstein survivors, said Friday on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“They came in to this administration, going to unseal all of these documents on the very first day,” Marsh continued. “They backtracked. They released some. They had binders. They’ve had at least a year to start working on this. And it’s somewhat no surprise that it’s come down to the last minute, and beyond, that we begin to see actual compliance.”
What still hasn’t been released?
It’s unclear what’s in the potentially new, million-document batch. But it comes from the FBI and the DOJ’s Southern District of New York, which prosecuted Maxwell and Epstein earlier, before his suicide. Court filings from her case indicate there were “millions of documents produced in discovery” for her trial.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, has been among the most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill for releasing the files. He told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last week that, “The most important documents are missing.”
He said he’s eager for the Justice Department to release a 60-count draft indictment against Epstein that was written — but never filed — by federal prosecutors in 2007. There is also an 82-page memo that was written in support of pursuing that prosecution.
Instead of facing federal charges that year, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to state prostitution charges, including one involving minors, in 2008 and was sentenced to 13 months in jail, though he was permitted to spend a significant chunk of that time on “work release” at his office, an arrangement that drew the ire of victims and has been widely criticized.
Khanna and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, who co-wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act, have threatened to possibly hold DOJ leaders in contempt if they don’t follow through and release these documents, as well as all the other remaining files required by law.
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