The U.S. Justice Department has disclosed that it still has 5.2 million pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein to review, and will need the support of 400 lawyers from four different department offices to complete the process, according to a government document reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday.
The massive backlog is expected to delay the public release of the files well beyond the December 19 deadline set by Congress, the document indicated. The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The files are connected to criminal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, who maintained social ties with U.S. President Donald Trump in the 1990s.
The release of the documents is mandated by a recently enacted transparency law, passed by Congress last month, which requires all Epstein-related materials to be made public—even against Trump’s prior efforts to keep them sealed.
According to the document, the Criminal Division, National Security Division, FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan are contributing 400 attorneys to the review.
Lawyers volunteering for the task are expected to dedicate three to five hours a day, reviewing roughly 1,000 documents daily. Telework and time-off awards are being offered as incentives. The review period is scheduled from January 5 to 23.
The Justice Department also revealed last week that it had identified over one million additional documents potentially linked to Epstein, further increasing the scope of the review.
So far, the documents released have been heavily redacted, frustrating some Republican lawmakers and doing little to quell the ongoing political controversy—particularly with the 2026 midterm elections approaching.
Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 for procuring a minor for prostitution and charged by the Justice Department in 2019 with sex trafficking. He died by suicide in a New York jail later that year.
Trump has maintained that his association with Epstein ended in the mid-2000s and that he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal activities.
In a statement shared on X last week, the Justice Department said: “We 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. Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks.”
About the Author
