WASHINGTON: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Monday (Jan 5) it is still reviewing more than two million documents potentially related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as it pushed more than two weeks past a deadline to release all files connected to him.
The department began releasing documents from the decades-long investigation into the late disgraced financier last month, but failed to meet the Dec 19 deadline mandated under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In a letter Monday to a federal judge, DOJ officials said more than two million documents remained “in various phases of review”.
About 12,285 documents comprising more than 125,000 pages, the letter said, had already been publicly released in response to the law – less than 1 per cent of the tranche currently in review.
The DOJ said it identified on Dec 24 more than one million files not included in its initial review.
Some of those documents appeared to be duplicates but would still need “processing and deduplication”, the letter noted.
“Substantial work remains to be done,” said the letter, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and others involved.
More than 400 DOJ attorneys will spend “the next few weeks” reviewing the documents, the officials said.