The congressionally-mandated deadline for the feds to disclose voluminous materials gathered on Jeffrey Epstein arrived Friday, with the Justice Department set to blow it — promising that while a batch was coming, it would take weeks to roll out the full array of documents.
In an interview on Fox News, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the DOJ’s second-in-command and President Trump’s former criminal lawyer, said law enforcement had been working “tirelessly” to comb through the materials since legislation enacted last month mandated their release.
“We’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms — photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche said.
But the deputy AG also said hundreds of thousands more would be released “over the next couple of weeks,” an apparent violation of the law requiring that all unclassified materials be released “not 30 days” after the law’s passage on Nov. 19.
“We are looking at every single piece of paper that we are gonna produce, making sure that every victim — their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected — is completely protected,” the deputy AG said.
In the wake of Blanche’s comments, ranking House Democrats Reps. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia, who have been leading the charge to release the files, said they were exploring legal options, calling the delay a “violation of federal law.”
Congress almost unanimously passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month after months of sustained public pressure and lobbying from countless women who say they were sexually abused and exploited by Epstein in their youth.
President Trump, despite recently decrying the public’s fascination with Epstein as fueled by a Democrat-led “hoax,” signed the bill into law, giving the DOJ 30 days to produce the materials. Before that, the agency and the FBI had refused to release the files in July in a memo citing “more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence” Epstein abused upwards of 1,000 victims.
Trump changed his position on publicly releasing the files this summer after a series of exposés in the Wall Street Journal cast an unflattering light on his decades-long friendship with the well-connected wealth manager.
As pressure mounted in November, Trump directed the DOJ to open an investigation into Epstein’s ties to Democrats. The probe is expected to limit how many files are revealed to the public, as the legislation prohibits the release of records that could impact ongoing investigations.
The president has arduously denied engaging in or knowing about Epstein’s abuse, and Trump has not faced any accusations from Epstein victims in active lawsuits or related legal matters.
Regardless, extensive reporting by The New York Times this week indicated the president was far closer to the financier than previously believed.
In a story published Thursday, The Times reported that Epstein and Trump were long considered best friends to many who knew them.
Epstein and his convicted paramour Ghislaine Maxwell introduced six victims To Trump, the outlet reported. One woman who has never spoken out, whose name The Times did not report, said she saw Trump at four of Epstein’s parties, including two at which Epstein had directed her to sleep with men in attendance. None of the women interviewed by the Times accused Trump of any inappropriate behavior.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), in a taped statement published on his X account Thursday, said the public should conclude that the Trump administration has withheld files if no one is incriminated in the document dump on Friday.
“If we get a large production on December 19 and it does not contain a single name of any male who’s accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape,” he said, “then we know they haven’t produced all the documents. It’s that simple.”
This story will be updated. Please check back for developments.
