DOJ says it is releasing 3 million pages from Epstein files today

Claire Healy, Julie K Brown, Ana Claudia Chacin and Shirsho Dasgupta, Miami Herald on Jan 30, 2026

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The Department of Justice announced that it is releasing 3 million pages of files related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein Friday – over a month after the deadline for the department to release all documents passed.

In a press conference Friday morning, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the files include 180,000 images and 2,000 videos. The department also sent a letter to Congress outlining the review of the files.

“Victims of Jeffrey Epstein have gone through unspeakable pain,” he said. “And no one should say anything differently.”

Blanche said that some documents have been withheld under exceptions outlined in the act, but that none were withheld for national security reasons. The identities of victims and images of women were redacted, he said, with the exception of Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. No men were redacted from the images unless it was impossible to redact the women pictured without also redacting the men, he said.

The letter sent to Congress stated that about 200,000 pages had been withheld or redacted, and as outlined in the law, a detailed documentation of reasons for redactions will be sent to Congress within 15 days. Reasons for redactions included “deliberative process privilege, the work-product doctrine, and attorney-client privilege.”

“There’s not some tranche of super secret documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that we’re withholding,” Blanche said, in response to a question about any withheld documents.

The department also encouraged victims and the public to reach out regarding any errors in redactions at EFTA@usdoj.gov.

Asked about the identities of additional men involved in Epstein’s abuse, he said “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abused these women, If we learn about information and evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will.

“I don’t think the public or you all are going to uncover men within the Epstein files who abused these women, unfortunately,” he said.

The fight to publish the files has embroiled the Trump Administration in controversy, after the president campaigned in 2024 on releasing the trove and abruptly reversed course in July 2025.

The documents detail the scope of DOJ investigations into a sex trafficking ring led by Epstein for decades. The department estimates that his victims number over 1,000.

In a Jan. 5 court filing, Blanche and Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the department has released approximately 12,285 documents in response to The Epstein Files Transparency Act, bipartisan federal legislation compelling the government to release all files by Dec. 19. The Act was signed into law by the president in November.

But over 2 million additional documents are “potentially responsive to the Act,” Blanche and Bondi wrote, and in “various phases of review.”

Many of the documents released in December 2025 were heavily redacted. Some pages with mention of President Donald Trump were abruptly removed, and then re-uploaded after reporting of their disappearance. The slow release and redactions have prompted outrage from victims and threats of legal action from Congress.

Blanche defended the department’s handling of the release Friday.

“I take umbrage at the suggestion, which is totally false, that the attorney general or this department does not take child exploitation or sex trafficking seriously, or that we somehow do not want to protect victims,” Blanche said on Friday.

Epstein harbored close relationships with powerful men across the world, including President Donald Trump, who has said that the men ended their friendship in the early 2000s. Many of the men have appeared in photos and documents in the files – including renowned academics, foreign leaders, President Trump and former President Bill Clinton. The men have previously denied knowledge of the abuse, or connection to it.

The files detail abuse spanning decades and continuing across the world. In 2007, despite evidence that he was sexually abusing dozens of young girls, Epstein reached a deal with federal prosecutors in South Florida, and pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges to settle accusations of sexual abuse leveled by dozens of teenagers.

Epstein served 13 months in the Palm Beach County Jail, but was allowed to leave regularly and continued to abuse girls.

It wasn’t until 2019, after the Miami Herald published its Perversion of Justice series detailing the incredibly lenient plea deal and Epstein’s continued abuse of girls, that he was arrested by the FBI and faced new sex charges. After a month in federal prison, he was found dead in his cell in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.

In 2021, Epstein’s accomplice and ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of five counts related to sex trafficking. She is currently serving a 20 year prison sentence in Texas, and reportedly seeking a commutation from the president.