FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern District of New York handed over a million more Jeffrey Epstein files to Department of Justice days after transparency law deadline passed.<\/b>
\nThe Department of Justice said Wednesday it may have more than a million more documents related to the late Jeffrey Epstein that it needs to review and that the process could take weeks to complete.
The DOJ said two of its components, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York, had just handed over the missing tranche of files, days after the Epstein Files Transparency Act deadline had passed.
\u00ab\u00a0We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible\u00a0\u00bb, the DOJ wrote in a statement on social media.
The \u00ab\u00a0mass volume of material\u00a0\u00bb could \u00ab\u00a0take a few more weeks\u00a0\u00bb to review, the DOJ said.
\u00ab\u00a0The Department will continue to fully comply with federal law and President Trump\u2019s direction to release the files\u00a0\u00bb, the department wrote.
The DOJ has been sharing on a public website since Friday tens of thousands of pages of files related to Epstein\u2019s and Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s sex-trafficking cases as part of its obligation under the transparency bill.
President Donald Trump signed the bill into law Nov. 19, giving the DOJ 30 days to review and release all unclassified material related to the cases.
The file rollout has stirred controversy as critics have blasted the DOJ for what they say are excessive redactions and the law’s lapsed deadline Friday. Initially, the DOJ said it would miss the deadline by a couple of weeks, but Wednesday’s announcement signals that might extend further into the new year than the administration had anticipated.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on \u00ab\u00a0Meet the Press\u00a0\u00bb Sunday there was \u00ab\u00a0well-settled law\u00a0\u00bb that supported the DOJ missing the bill’s deadline because of a need to meet other legal requirements, like redacting victim-identifying information.
The transparency bill required the DOJ to withhold information about victims and material that could jeopardize open investigations or litigation. Officials could also leave out information \u00ab\u00a0in the interest of national defense or foreign policy\u00a0\u00bb, the bill said.
The bill also explicitly directed the DOJ to keep visible any details that could be damaging to high-profile and politically connected people.<\/p>\n