The Department of Justice failed to meet its Friday deadline to release all files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, despite a law signed by President Donald Trump requiring full disclosure by December 19.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Friday morning that the DOJ would release only “several hundred thousand documents” today, and said additional releases would be spread over the coming weeks — a plan that defies with the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed overwhelmingly by Congress last month.
“I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today and, and those documents will come in, in all different forms — photographs and, and other materials associated with, with all of the investigations into, into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche told Fox News. “Today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.”
Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who led the discharge petition forcing the House vote on the bill, warned that failure to release all the documents would be used to conceal the identities of Epstein’s clients and other guilty parties.
“If we get a large production on December 19th and it does not contain a single name of any male who’s accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape or any of these things, then we know they haven’t produced all the documents,” Massie said. “It’s that simple.”
Massie said he has spoken with lawyers for Epstein’s victims who allege that “there are at least 20 names of men who are accused of sex crimes in the possession of the FBI.”
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed into law on November 19, requires the attorney general to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices” related to Epstein.
The law passed the House 427-1 on November 18, with only Republican Representative Clay Higgins voting against it. The Senate approved the measure in a unanimous vote the same day.
Blanche claimed the delay was to protect victims’ identities.
“The most important thing that the attorney general has talked about, that [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has talked about, is that we protect victims, and so what we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected,” Blanche said.
Massie had warned that victim protection excuses could be used as a stalling tactic, noting that House Speaker Mike Johnson “repeatedly said that the release of this material would endanger victims” but that the law contains specific protections to conceal victims’ identities.
“This is a law, not a subpoena,” Massie stressed in his Thursday video. “There’s no ambiguity with the law and what the law requires to be released.”
Massie emphasized that the law does not expire and that noncompliance would remain illegal even after officials leave office. He warned there would be “penalties” if Attorney General Pam Bondi does not comply.
“There’s nothing subject to interpretation,” he said.
Our Epstein Files Transparency Act is now law. It establishes a December 19 deadline for the Attorney General to release the Epstein files.
In this video, I’ll tell you what to expect in advance of tomorrow's statutory disclosure deadline. pic.twitter.com/7aD7q1kyLC
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 18, 2025
In the meantime, The House Oversight Committee have been releasing documents from Epstein’s private files handed over by his estate under subpoena.
On Thursday, they released 68 new photos including images of prominent figures such as far-Left philosopher Noam Chomsky, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The photos do not implicate those pictured in any crimes.
Epstein died under mysterious circumstances inside a New York federal jail in August 2019, just before he was set to testify. His associate Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and has denied having been aware of Epstein’s crimes.