More than two weeks past a congressionally mandated deadline, the Department of Justice disclosed Monday that it has released fewer than 13,000 documents related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The materials include internal emails, FBI interview notes, draft charging documents, Bureau of Prisons records, third-party subpoena returns, court filings, and various forms of media.
In a five-page letter filed with U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton revealed that more than 2 million documents “potentially responsive” to the Epstein Files Transparency Act remain in various phases of review and redaction. The disclosure comes as bipartisan lawmakers who authored the legislation are drafting rare “inherent contempt” charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi for failing to comply with the law’s December 19, 2025 deadline.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the attorney general to make publicly available “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein, his associates, or entities connected to his trafficking or financial networks. The law allows redactions only for specific categories, including personally identifiable information of victims, child sexual abuse materials, and classified information.
According to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ had an additional 15 days after December 19 to explain any redactions and provide Congress with a list of government officials mentioned in the files. This deadline fell around January 3, 2026, the same day President Trump authorized military strikes to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Among the most notable findings in the documents that have been released are details about President Trump’s relationship with Epstein. A January 2020 email from a federal prosecutor revealed that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously reported”—at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996. Four of these flights included Ghislaine Maxwell, and one flight carried only three passengers: Trump, Epstein, and a 20-year-old individual whose name was redacted.
The files also revealed that Mar-a-Lago received a 2021 subpoena requesting employment records related to the Maxwell case, specifically for a redacted name. Trump had previously stated that Epstein had “hired away” a staff member from the resort.
The documents included tips submitted to the FBI alleging misconduct by Trump, including a rape allegation from a woman who later died from a gunshot wound to the head. However, the Justice Department issued a statement calling these claims “untrue and sensationalist” and noting they were submitted “right before the 2020 election.” A purported letter from Epstein to convicted abuser Larry Nassar mentioning Trump was determined to be fake by Trump’s FBI, it was postmarked three days after Epstein’s death with incorrect return information.
The release included multiple never-before-seen photographs of former President Bill Clinton. Clinton has called for the release of all the Epstein files, and the Justice Department provided no context about when or where the photos of Clinton were taken. Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s plane but maintained through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.
Perhaps the most significant revelation concerns the scope of Epstein’s operation. FBI emails from July 2019—just days after Epstein’s arrest—discussed ten alleged “co-conspirators” whom investigators were attempting to locate for grand jury testimony. By July 9, 2019, six had been served with subpoenas in Florida, Boston, New York City, and Connecticut. Four remained unserved, including one described as a “wealthy businessman in Ohio.”
Seven of the ten names were redacted in the released documents. September 2019 emails indicated the investigation remained “ongoing,” and prosecutors drafted multiple memos including a seven-page document on “co-conspirators we could potentially charge,” an 86-page “co-conspirator update memo,” and a 13-page corporate prosecution memo that was reportedly “never discussed.”
Known co-conspirators included billionaire Leslie Wexner, French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel (who died by suicide in 2022), and several women who worked for Epstein: Sarah Kellen, Lesley Groff, Adriana Ross, and Nadia Marcinkova. All were shielded from prosecution under Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea agreement.
Rep. Ro Khanna called the co-conspirator evidence a “bombshell,” stating: “The existence of an email indicating there are ten co-conspirators suggests that other wealthy and influential men were involved—it’s not solely Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell implicated in the abuse.”
Email exchanges believed to be from Prince Andrew (now Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after being stripped of his royal title) revealed concerning communications with Ghislaine Maxwell. In an August 2001 email sent from an account labeled “The Invisible Man” and signed simply as “A,” the sender wrote from “Balmoral Summer Camp”—the royal family’s Scottish residence—asking Maxwell: “How’s LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”
Maxwell responded: “So sorry to dissapoint [sic] you…I have only been able to find appropriate friends.”
More damaging was a February 2011 email sent the day after the infamous photograph of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre was published. Andrew wrote to Epstein: “I’m just as concerned for you! Don’t worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it.” This directly contradicted Andrew’s claim to the BBC that he had cut ties with Epstein in December 2010.
The files also showed that U.S. authorities sought to interview Andrew about two separate investigations: the Epstein case and an investigation into fashion executive Peter Nygard. Documents indicated Andrew had traveled to Nygard Cay in the Bahamas, “where Nygard is believed to have trafficked minors.”
Epstein’s daily schedules revealed planned meetings with several prominent figures that occurred after his 2007 sex offender registration. A December 6, 2014 entry noted: “Reminder: Elon Musk to island Dec. 6 (is this still happening?)” Musk has stated that Epstein invited him, but he declined.
Other schedule entries included a November 27, 2017 lunch with billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel (a billionaire investor and influential supporter of Donald Trump) and a February 16, 2019 breakfast with Steve Bannon (a strategist for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, becoming his first White House Chief Strategist, and continued supporter of Trump)—just months before Epstein’s death. A tentative December 2014 breakfast with Bill Gates was also noted; Gates later told the BBC that meeting Epstein was a “mistake.”
Within the DOJ’s letter, Clayton wrote to Judge Engelmayer “Currently, and anticipated for the next few weeks ahead, in the range of over 400 lawyers across the Department will dedicate all or a substantial portion of their workday to the Department’s efforts to comply with the Act.”
The effort includes more than 125 attorneys from the Southern District of New York, dozens from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida, and attorneys from the Criminal Division and National Security Division, and more than 100 specially trained FBI document analysts with experience handling sensitive victim materials are assisting with the review.
The partial release has drawn criticism from multiple directions. A group of 19 alleged Epstein victims, including two Jane Does, issued a statement on December 21 accusing the Justice Department of “clear-cut violations of an unambiguous law.”
“Instead, the public received a fraction of the files, and what we received was riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation,” the survivors wrote. “At the same time, numerous victim identities were left unredacted, causing real and immediate harm.”
The survivors noted that no financial documents were released and that 119 pages of grand jury minutes approved for release by a federal judge were “fully blacked out—not the scattered redactions that might be expected to protect victim names, but 119 full pages blacked out.”
The incomplete release received a similar response from the bipartisan sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced they are drafting “inherent contempt” charges against Attorney General Bondi. This seldom-used congressional sanction that would allow the House to fine the attorney general for each day documents remain unreleased.
“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi, and that doesn’t require going through the courts,” Massie told CBS’s Face the Nation on December 22. “Basically, Ro Khanna and I are talking about and drafting that right now.”
Unlike standard contempt of Congress charges, inherent contempt proceedings can be approved by a majority in the House alone, without requiring Senate approval or executive branch cooperation for enforcement. The mechanism that allows Congress to fine or even arrest officers obstructing legislative functions was last successfully used in the 1930s.
“Our interest is not to take down Pam Bondi,” Khanna said in an NPR interview. “Our interest is to take down the rich and powerful men who abused over 12,000 survivors and to finally see justice and to not have an Epstein class in this country that gets to flout the rules, live by its own values and not suffer consequences.
Clayton’s letter to Judge Engelmayer provided no timeline for when the department expects to complete its review of the remaining 2 million documents or when the public can expect the next batch of releases. The filing indicated only that the modified procedures would continue “for the next few weeks ahead.”
