Lawmakers, including those who wrote the law requiring their publication, argue the release is insufficient.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it has released all of the files required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but lawmakers have argued the release is insufficient.

The letter sent to members of the US Congress on Saturday from Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche said all documents in the possession of the DoJ had been released and provided a list of names contained in the files.

Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who co-wrote the law, called for the DoJ to also release internal memos outlining past decisions on whether to charge Epstein and his associates.

Millions of new files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released by the DoJ earlier this month.

  • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    22 hours ago

    It’s actually six million files in total.

    From Rep. Raskin’s opening statement at Thursday’s hearing:

    You’re running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Justice Department. You’ve been ordered by a subpoena and by Congress to turn over six million documents, photographs and videos in the Epstein files but you’ve turned over only three million. You say you’re not turning over the other 3 million because they’re somehow duplicative. But we know that there are actual memos of victim statements in there. And you also took down the Department of Justice’s prosecution memo from 2019. So it’s clearly not all duplicative. But even if it were, why not release it, just release all the duplicative stuff.

    In the half you did produce, you redacted the names of abusers, enablers, accomplices and co-conspirators, apparently to spare them embarrassment and disgrace, which is the exact opposite of what the law ordered you to do.

    Even worse, you shockingly failed to redact many of the victims’ names, which is what you were ordered to do by Congress. Some of the victims had come forward publicly, but many had not. Many had kept their torment private, even from family and friends. But you published their names, their identities, their images on thousands of pages for the world to see. So you ignored the law.

    And even with over 100,000 employees at your disposal, you acted with some mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference, and jaded cruelty towards more than 1,000 victims raped, abused and trafficked. This performance screams cover-up.