More than two million documents potentially related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are still being held by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with no sign yet of them being made public some two weeks after a deadline to release the material.
As Breitbart News reported, the department began releasing documents from the decades-long investigation into the late disgraced financier last month, but failed to meet the December 19 deadline mandated under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In a letter Monday to a federal judge, DOJ officials said more than two million documents remained “in various phases of review,” according to AFP.
About 12,285 documents comprising more than 125,000 pages, the letter said, had already been publicly released in response to the law — less than one percent of the tranche currently in review, the AFP report notes.
The DOJ said it identified on December 24 more than one million files not included in its initial review.
Some of those documents appeared to be duplicates but would still need “processing and deduplication,” the letter – as confirmed by AFP – noted.
“Substantial work remains to be done,” said the missive, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and others involved.
More than 400 DOJ attorneys will spend “the next few weeks” reviewing the Epstein files, the officials said.
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Breitbart News Deputy Political Editor Bradley Jaye reported last November the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by the House came after Democrats remained “mostly silent” regarding Epstein and the files relating to him under the Biden administration:
Passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, although unlikely to result in any additional criminals being brought to justice, is a political victory for Democrats, who found religion this year on Epstein after four years of remaining mostly silent on the matter during Joe Biden’s presidency.
While President Donald Trump encouraged House Republicans to vote to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, he has also advocated for moving “on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.”