The U.S. Department of Justice has disclosed that it still has approximately 5.2 million pages of documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein to review, a process that will require hundreds of attorneys and is expected to delay the final public release of the records beyond a congressional deadline.
According to a government document reviewed Tuesday, the department has assigned roughly 400 lawyers from four separate offices to conduct the review through late January. The scale of the effort makes it unlikely the materials will be released as quickly as lawmakers anticipated under a transparency law passed last month.
Congress required the Justice Department to make all Epstein-related files public by Dec. 19, subject to redactions to protect victims. The document indicates the review process will instead take place between Jan. 5 and Jan. 23.
The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The review involves attorneys from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, the National Security Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Department leaders have offered telework arrangements and time off incentives to encourage participation, according to the document.
Lawyers assisting with the effort are expected to spend three to five hours per day reviewing roughly 1,000 documents daily. The DOJ said last week that it had discovered more than one million additional records potentially connected to Epstein.
The Trump administration ordered the release of the files in compliance with the new transparency law, which passed Congress with bipartisan support. The statute mandates disclosure of all Epstein-related materials, even though President Donald Trump had previously sought to keep many of the records sealed.
So far, documents that have been released have been heavily redacted, prompting frustration among some Republican lawmakers and failing to quiet political controversy ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was convicted in Florida in 2008 on charges related to the prostitution of a minor. In 2019, federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking. He was found dead later that year in a New York jail, and his death was ruled a suicide.
Trump has acknowledged knowing Epstein socially during the 1990s and early 2000s but has said their association ended years before Epstein’s arrest and that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct.
In a statement posted on X last week, the Justice Department said it is working continuously to review the records and apply legally required redactions to protect victims, adding that the sheer volume of material means the process could take several more weeks.
