The law was clear: Donald Trump’s Department of Justice was required to disclose all investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein by 19 December 2025, with rare exceptions.

One month after this deadline mandated by Congress’s Epstein Files Transparency Act, however, Trump’s justice department has not complied with this law, prompting questions about when – and whether – authorities will ever release investigative documents about the late sex offender.

Justice department attorneys said in a 5 January Manhattan court filing that they had posted approximately 12,285 to DoJ’s website, equating to some 125,575 pages, under this legislation’s requirements. They said in this same letter that justice department staff had identified “more than 2 million documents potentially responsive to the Act that are in various phases of review”.

That these DoJ’s disclosures apparently comprise a drop in the bucket – and have done little to shed light on how Epstein operated with apparent impunity for years – has roiled survivors’ advocates and lawmakers. They include attorney Spencer Kuvin, who has represented dozens of Epstein’s survivors.

They note that the Department of Justice has also flouted another requirement of this act, which requires that the attorney general provide a report identifying “categories of records released and withheld and summarizing all redactions and their legal bases” within 15 days of their disclosure deadline.

“To date, no such report has been provided. Without it, there is no authoritative accounting of what records exist, what has been withheld, or why, making effective oversight and judicial review far more difficult,” they wrote. “Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act.”

  • D_C@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    HEY, GUYS, WHADDABOUT THAT GREENLAND. IT’S OVER THERE, LOOK…AND I’M GOING TO INVADE IT. GUYS, JUST FORGET ABOUT THE CHILD RAPE STUFF I DID WITH MY MATE JEFFERY AND CONCENTRATE ON GREENLAND!!!

    • fizzle@quokk.au
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      2 days ago

      Sooner or later you have to acknowledge that the distraction is much worse than the Epstein Files.

      If Trump withdraws the US from NATO that would have very grave implications for global stability.

      I don’t want to minimise the suffering of Epstein & Trump’s victims, but a global conflict with millions of casualties is more concerning.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          It’s legit crazy to see liberals six months late to the party on everything.

          In the middle of 2024, they were too scared to talk about the Epstein files and fixated on Russia. In the middle of 2025, the Schumercrats finally got on board, just as shit in LA and DC and Minnesota was popping off. By the middle of 2026, maybe they’ll be talking about how the invocation of the Insurrection Act is a problem.

      • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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        2 days ago

        I agree but I suspect his base doesn’t. They love all this power projection and hostility, and the Epstein stuff is something that they’re unusually not in agreement with the administration on.

        That being said, I think it detracts from the real implications of these actions if they’re only referred to as a distraction. These are very, very likely things that Trump wants to implement regardless and not just something that’s done to shift the attention elsewhere.

        • village604@adultswim.fan
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          They could release video footage of Trump raping an infant to death and his base would find a way to justify it.

          Anyone who thinks Trump will suffer any consequences from being implicated in the files is delusional.

          • IronBird@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            (smart) people really don’t care about trump, he will be short-lived even if he makes it through this 2nd term. it’s about cutting out the rot behind him, cults of personality rarely extend past the cult-head.

            • fizzle@quokk.au
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              24 hours ago

              I really do care about Trump, and I don’t care whether you think I’m smart.

              He may be old, and even unwell, but the amount of damage he’s doing every day / week / month is obscene. Just in the last week he’s done significant lasting harm to trade relations with Europe.

              If he withdraws the US from NATO he will have done irreparable damage to global security.

              I don’t have a lot of faith that the harm he’s doing can be undone.

              • IronBird@lemmy.world
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                23 hours ago

                i just dont think it’ll be materially different with vance in place of trump, the national distraction/embarrassment aspect might be less but the bts christofacist shit would be much more precise

                • fizzle@quokk.au
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                  23 hours ago

                  You might be right, I dont know.

                  Trump seems to have absolute control of the republican party. Its not clear whether Vance would have that same grip.

      • D_C@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Yep, completely agree…however acknowledging that fact doesn’t make anything stop or go away.

        Furthermore, if everyone stopped talking about Epstein and the raping of children, or if no one had ever mentioned it, then this type of shit would still happen because the orange buffoon is obviously compromised by russia, and putin wants the EU to be weakened.
        The distractions are just an added ‘bonus’ for obese paedo.

    • Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 day ago

      This, and Israel, and Russia, and China…

      They love tRump for distracting all western countries, or at least a big mass of people living in those countries, so they can do their stuff without public eyeballs, just like it was back in the pre-internet times.

    • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Social media used to scare the state because people can organize and protest and overall complain better.

      They kinda figured out only one topic trends at a time for each category now. Also just paying socal media companies can influence it a lot too.

      So the tactic is hinting the pedophilia while bombing Palestine and invading Venezuela for oil and sending ICE along with threathening Greenland/Europe at same time. Three of these then get ignored.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        Social media used to scare the state because people can organize and protest and overall complain better.

        That was over a decade ago. The big social media companies have tightened up their algorithms significantly and can strictly control what is “trending”, who can see another person’s content, and what kind of organization can occur.

        Reactionaries were way out ahead on this when they started their own smattering of alt-media (Truth Social being a branch of Mastadon is painfully ironic, given how the platform has been flogged by Lefties as an alternative to Twitter since the Obama Administration). Liberals are still huddled on Facebook and Instagram and Reddit, struggling through waves of Shrimp Jesus content and screamer ads for MyPillow, to post “Trump has small ads” into an echo-chamber of bot accounts.

        So the tactic is hinting the pedophilia while bombing Palestine and invading Venezuela for oil and sending ICE along with threathening Greenland/Europe at same time. Three of these then get ignored.

        None of them are ignored. At the same time, vanishingly few people seem to know who to talk to in order to contribute to an organization that opposes these policies. Just whispering the phrase “DSA” sets off a firestorm of angry liberals blaming Ilhan Omar for costing Harris the election. Meanwhile, Chris Coons is the only Dem in the Senate with anything resembling a spine and he can’t seem to get the corporate camera crews to notice him.

        None of this shit is getting ignored. All of it is very deliberately suppressed.