Justice Department is reviewing 5.2 million pages of Jeffrey Epstein files

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is working to review approximately 5.2 million pages related to recently convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to comply with a law passed by Congress, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News late Tuesday.

This number is much higher than previously known.

The DOJ was looking to hire about 400 employees to sift through the cases, which is expected to run from Jan. 5 to 20, two sources familiar with the plan told NBC News.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that attorneys at the department’s headquarters, FBI, Southern District of Florida and Southern District of New York were “working around the clock during the holidays, including Christmas and New Year’s, to review documents in accordance with federal law.”

“This is truly a crowdsourced approach and we are asking as many attorneys as possible to dedicate their time to reviewing the remaining documents,” he wrote on

A bipartisan law required the Justice Department to release the federal government’s extensive files on Epstein by December 19. The New York Times reported on the additional documents Tuesday evening.

The Justice Department said in a Dec. 24 X-post that attorneys were “working around the clock to review and make legally required redactions to protect victims,” ​​but due to the massive volume of documents, the process “could take a few additional weeks.”

The Trump administration has been criticized for failing to release all government documents related to Epstein by the Dec. 19 deadline, as required by law signed by President Donald Trump. Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who shepherded the legislation through Congress, said earlier this month that they were speaking with members of Congress about contempt of Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also said last week that he would introduce a resolution ordering the Senate to “take legal action against the DOJ” for releasing only some of its Epstein-related documents.

A day later, the Justice Department released 30,000 additional documents — the third batch made public — including an email claiming that flight logs show Trump flew on Epstein’s plane at least eight times in the 1990s. The email came from an unnamed assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, but the sender and recipient were redacted.

In an article on

After this release, Khanna wrote on

Last Friday, Trump acknowledged that more than a million documents potentially related to the Epstein case had been turned over to the DOJ by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI. The president complained that the DOJ “is forced to devote all its time to this Democrat-inspired hoax.” He added: “The radical left doesn’t want people to talk about Trump and Republican success, only about long-dead Jeffrey Epstein – just another witch hunt!!! »

Trump has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The White House said Trump ended his relationship with Epstein in the early 2000s because Epstein was a “dirty guy.”

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in New York in 2021 of multiple sex trafficking charges for her role in the sexual abuse of underage girls and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.