Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 (U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice, Wikimedia Commons)
Democratic lawmakers announced on Thursday that they want an investigation to uncover whether the Department of Justice has "tampered with" any of the investigatory files around the trafficking case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
CBS's Scott MacFarlane reported that he spoke with Epstein survivors who fear the records had been "scrubbed, softened, or quietly removed before the public sees it."
The questions come after a whistleblower revealed to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats that nearly 1,000 FBI personnel were tasked with sifting through the files.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) released a statement claiming the DOJ and FBI were tasked with searching through the Epstein files, looking for President Donald Trump's name.
"My office was told that these personnel were instructed to 'flag' any records in which President Trump was mentioned.... Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?" Durbin asked in July letters to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel and deputy director Dan Bongino. "What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?"
A new bill passed by the House and Senate, and signed by Trump mandates that the government release all Epstein documents by Dec. 19 and only redact limited items.
"To reassure the American public that any files released have not been tampered with or concealed, the chain of custody forms associated with records and evidence in the Epstein files must be accounted for, analyzed, and released," the request sent Thursday said.
"There should absolutely be concern about the chain of custody of the Epstein files," Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer representing some of the Epstein survivors told CBS.
"These records have passed through too many hands, behind too many closed doors, for anyone to simply assume they're intact, unaltered, or complete," Kuvin explained. "Survivors have endured decades of secrecy, broken promises, and institutional protection of powerful men; they should not now be asked to trust a process with no independent verification."