WASHINGTON — A bipartisan pair of lawmakers asked a Manhattan federal judge Tuesday to compel the prompt release of all investigative materials on deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, after the Department of Justice acknowledged last week it had yet to release 99% of documents related to the case.
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) requested US District Judge Paul Engelmayer to appoint a special master “to oversee the release” in compliance with their bill — which President Trump signed into law on Nov. 19 — ordering the disclosures.
“[T]he DOJ has not made adequate disclosures,” lawyers for Massie and Khanna wrote. “Therefore, the Congressmen wish to propose that this Court appoint an independent body through its inherent powers to oversee the DOJ’s production of documents from these proceedings.”
Since Dec. 19, one month after the Epstein Files Transparency Act took effect, Trump’s DOJ has put out 12,285 documents, comprising around 125,575 pages of investigative material, on its Epstein Library webpage.
A special master would provide regular reports to the judge about the pace of the documents’ release — and could demand testimony from members of the US attorney’s office overseeing the effort.
Engelmayer ruled Monday that Massie and Khanna could file a legal brief arguing how the Justice Department “has failed, in multiple respects, to comply with the requirements” of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, necessitating the independent monitor.
Federal prosecutors were asked to respond to that filing by Friday, with the judge asking the DOJ to address whether the lawmakers have standing and whether the Southern District of New York was the proper venue, among other issues.
Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, may also file a reply brief by Jan. 20.
In a Jan. 8 letter, Massie and Khanna had suggested to Judge Engelmayer that the DOJ had committed “criminal violations” by not abiding by “mandatory disclosure obligations” and that Attorney General Pam Bondi had failed to submit a required report to Congress categorizing which records will be released, redacted or withheld.
More than 2 million Epstein files are still under review, the Justice Department had noted two days earlier. Reps for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Roughly 400 lawyers have been tasked with the massive undertaking according to the Jan. 6 DOJ filing, with at least 125 alone participating from the Southern District of New York — more than half of the total workforce under Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton.
Officials revealed on Christmas Eve that another 1 million documents potentially linked to Epstein were recently uncovered.
“Based on broad initial reviews of those documents, the Department expects that a meaningful portion of the documents are copies of (or largely duplicative of) documents that had already been collected by the Department for review but nonetheless still need to undergo a process of processing and deduplication,” Clayton said.
“The goal of all these efforts is to facilitate the release of materials under the Act promptly and to continue to protect victim privacy to the maximum extent practicable as contemplated by the Act and consistent with Department policy and the Court’s Order,” he added.
Officials say the slow pace of the file release has been necessary to protect victims and prevent ongoing court cases from being compromised.
Amateur web sleuths have found out how to uncensor some redacted files by copying them from Adobe Acrobat and then pasting them into a word processor.
The Post verified the redaction mishap last month.
