Additional Coverage:
DOJ Seeks Hundreds More Lawyers to Tackle Mammoth Epstein Document Review
**Washington D.C. ** – The Department of Justice (DOJ) is scrambling to accelerate its review of an astounding 5.2 million pages of previously unexamined documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The department is now enlisting an additional 400 lawyers from its criminal and national security divisions, as well as U.S. Attorneys’ offices in Florida and New York, according to sources familiar with the matter.
This recruitment drive comes after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed earlier this month that nearly 200 lawyers were already dedicated to the monumental task. However, recent directives from department leadership underscore the urgent need for more manpower. The New York Times was the first to report on this significant development.
The intensive document review is expected to consume much of January. The re-allocation of resources from both criminal and national security divisions has sparked concerns among current and former DOJ officials, particularly as the department has already diverted considerable resources towards immigration enforcement.
The next release of these critical documents is not anticipated until the end of next month. Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, mandating the release of the DOJ’s files on Epstein, with exceptions for victim privacy and ongoing investigations, by Friday, December 19th. The DOJ has since cited delays in the vetting process, specifically to protect victims, as the reason for missing this deadline.
A lingering question remains as to why the Department of Justice is only now acknowledging the existence of upward of 5 million pages of documents from its investigations into Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. This follows a similar incident in February, when Attorney General Pam Bondi admonished the U.S.
Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York for only then alerting her to hundreds of thousands of previously undisclosed documents. The reasons behind the delayed discovery of this vast new volume of material remain unclear.