The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday released a new list of records related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the latest effort by the Trump administration to comply with a law passed in November that required the department to disclose all records related to Epstein by Dec. 19, 2025.
Reuters is currently reviewing the files.
The department said at the end of the year that it still had more than five million pages to review and would have to reassign hundreds of lawyers to do so, sparking criticism from some members of Congress that the administration’s slow pace had violated the law.
President Donald Trump, who was friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s before falling out years before Epstein’s first conviction, had spent months resisting any release until Democrats and Republicans in Congress pushed forward the law over his objections.
The law authorizes certain redactions, in particular to protect victims and preserve ongoing investigations. But the files released so far have been largely redacted, in some cases entirely, frustrating lawmakers.
Trump has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and he has denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
Epstein, a New York financier, was found hanging in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Although his death was ruled a suicide, it spawned years of conspiracy theories, some of which Trump himself presented to his own supporters during his 2024 presidential campaign.
The Epstein scandal has become a lingering political issue for Trump, who is already facing declining approval ratings on a range of issues, including his handling of the economy and his crackdown on immigration.
