The US Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the Epstein files.
According to a court filing, prompting renewed criticism from Democrats who accuse the Trump administration of unlawfully keeping records under seal.
The department has so far published 12,285 documents, totalling 125,575 pages, related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Federal law required the bulk of the material to be released by 19 December.
In a five-page letter submitted on Monday to Paul Engelmayer, the federal judge overseeing the case in New York, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said the slow pace was due to efforts to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims.
“There are more than two million documents potentially responsive to the Act that are in various phases of review,” Bondi wrote. The letter was co-signed by her deputy, Todd Blanche, and Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York.
Bondi said the review process required significant resources, with around 400 justice department lawyers involved, alongside 100 FBI analysts trained to handle sensitive material.
Democrats, however, have continued to press the department over the delayed disclosures, despite other major developments, including the reported capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, dominating headlines.
“What are they trying to hide?” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, asked in a post on X. He accused the justice department of failing to provide Congress with an unredacted list of all government officials and politically exposed individuals named or referenced in the files.
Schumer said it had been 17 days since the department first failed to comply with the law and 14 days since any new documents were released. He added that the material published so far was heavily redacted and contained no significant new information.
“The Trump DOJ’s lawlessness must stop,” he said. “I will do everything in my power to ensure all the files come out.”
Blanche said last week that the department remained committed to transparency while protecting victims. He said staff had worked through the holiday period to review the remaining documents.
“It truly is an all-hands-on-deck approach,” he said, adding that necessary redactions would not prevent the eventual release of the material.
Before Christmas, the department said federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the FBI had identified more than one million additional documents not included in the initial review. Officials said at the time that compliance with the law could take several more weeks.
Last month, Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, and Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said they were considering filing an inherent contempt lawsuit against Bondi to compel faster disclosure.
The documents released since 19 December have provided some detail about Epstein’s trafficking network, which was facilitated by his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence. However, the disclosures have produced no major new revelations.
Marina Lacerda, an Epstein victim who met him at the age of 14, told the Guardian last month that she wanted Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, to face justice in the United States. He was a close associate of Epstein and Maxwell.
One document described alleged attempts by Mountbatten-Windsor to have Maxwell introduce him to “inappropriate friends”, while she sought “friendly and discreet and fun” young women. He has denied any wrongdoing.
