US Justice Dept opens unredacted Epstein files to lawmakers
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Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking minor girls.
PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON - The US Justice Department opened the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files to review by members of Congress on Feb 9 as several lawmakers expressed concern that some names have been removed from the publicly released records.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed overwhelmingly by Congress in November 2025, compelled the Justice Department to release all of the documents in its possession
It required the redaction of the names or any other personally identifiable information about Epstein’s victims, who numbered more than 1,000, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). But it said no records could be “withheld, delayed or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure or foreign dignitary”.
Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, was among the Democratic and Republican lawmakers who examined the unredacted files at a secure Justice Department location on Feb 9.
“I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,” Mr Raskin told reporters.
“There are certainly lots of names of other people who were enablers and cooperators with Jeffrey Epstein that were just blanked out for no apparent reason,” he said.
Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said he discovered the names of six men whose identities have been redacted from the released documents and who “are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files”.
Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, said “there’s no explanation why those people were redacted”.
They declined to provide their identities, but Mr Massie said one of them “is pretty high up in a foreign government” and Mr Khanna said one of the others “is a pretty prominent individual”.
Mr Massie and Mr Khanna also said that many of the redactions in the released files had been made prior to the documents being received by the Justice Department.
Those redactions may have been made earlier by the FBI or by prosecutors, they said.
“Our law was very clear,” Mr Khanna said. “Unless something was classified, it required it to be unredacted.”
Epstein, who had ties to business executives, politicians, celebrities and academics, was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking minor girls.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, is the only person convicted of a crime in connection with Epstein.
She was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking underage girls to the financier and is serving a 20-year prison sentence
On Feb 9, Maxwell testified from prison to Congress but refused to answer any questions – while stating that she would speak if US President Donald Trump granted her clemency.
The Justice Department has said no new prosecutions are expected but the reputation of a number of political and business leaders have already been tarnished by scandal, or they have resigned after their ties with Epstein were revealed in the files.
Mr Trump fought for months to prevent release of the vast trove of documents about Epstein – a long-time former friend – but a rebellion among Republicans forced him to sign off on the law mandating release of all the records.
The move reflected intense political pressure to address what many Americans, including Mr Trump’s own supporters, have long suspected to be a cover-up to protect rich and powerful men in Epstein’s orbit. AFP
