The Justice Department Released More Epstein Files—but Not the Ones Survivors Want

During the weekend, The Department of Justice has released three new datasets containing files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department had previously released nearly 4,000 documents before the Friday midnight deadline required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

As with Friday’s release, the new slide appears to contain hundreds of photos, along with various court records related to Epstein and his associates. The first of the additional datasets, Dataset 5, is images of physical hard drives and folders, as well as chain-of-custody models. Data Set 6 appears to be mostly grand jury material from cases out of the Southern District of New York against Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Data Set 7 includes more grand jury materials from those cases, as well as materials from a separate 2007 Florida grand jury.

Data Set 7 also includes an out-of-arrangement transcript between R. Alexander Acosta and the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility from 2019. According to the transcript, the Attorney General’s Office was investigating whether attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida committed professional misconduct by entering into a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, who was being investigated by state law enforcement on sexual assault charges. Acosta was the head of the office when the agreement was signed.

Prior to the deadline to release the materials, the Department of Justice filed three separate requests to unseal the grand jury materials. These requests were approved earlier this month.

The initial release of the Epstein files was met with protest, especially by Epstein’s victims and Democratic lawmakers. “The public received a small portion of the files, and what we received was full of unnatural and extreme redactions without any explanation,” a group of 19 women who survived abuse by Epstein and Maxwell wrote in a statement posted on social media. Sen. Chuck Schumer said Monday he would force a vote allowing the Senate to sue the Trump administration for the full release of the Epstein files.

Along with releasing the new set of files over the weekend, the Justice Department also removed at least 16 files from its initial offering, including an image depicting Donald Trump. The Justice Department later restored that photo, saying in a statement on X that it was initially flagged “for potential further action to protect victims.” The post went on to say that “after review, it was determined that there was no evidence that any of Epstein’s victims appeared in the photo, and it was reposted without any changes or revisions.”

The Justice Department admitted in a fact sheet on Sunday that it has “hundreds of thousands of pages of material to release,” claiming to have more than 200 lawyers reviewing the files before they are published.