Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are seen in this image released by the Department of Justice U.S. Justice Department/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The Justice Department is being investigated by a watchdog about whether it is fully complying with the law mandating that files associated with trafficker Jeffrey Epstein be revealed to the public.
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that the internal DOJ watchdog, the Inspector General, is looking into whether the department has fully released all of the files.
Survivors and lawmakers have commented that the DOJ still has documents it hasn't released but should have, CNN reported in March. These include over 50 pages of FBI interviews and FBI notes taken by agents about one of the accusers of President Donald Trump, NPR reported in February. The young woman, who was a minor at the time, was interviewed by the FBI four times about her story. Of that, only a summary of her interview was made public.
"NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January," the report said. "NPR's investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be cataloged by the Justice Department but not shared publicly."
In January, the DOJ said it was officially done releasing the Epstein files, having uploaded 3.5 million documents. It was just some of over 6 million pages of documents and at least 14 terabytes of archived materials that the FBI and DOJ have in their possession, including photos and videos, the U.K's Channel 4 News said, after reviewing FBI emails. Thus far, only about 300 gigabytes have been released.
There are a large number of images (180,000) and videos (over 2,000) that contain explicit images of children that were not uploaded to the database.
CBS News reported in March that tens of thousands of pages were removed after widespread criticism and concern from survivors and their attorneys over the government's not withholding their personal information as was required by the law. Rather than removing the page, redacting the information and re-uploading it, the report said those pages had merely disappeared. It has left about 2.7 million documents of the 3 million the DOJ said it uploaded.
It has been less than a month since former Attorney General Pam Bondi was ousted from her post and her deputy, Todd Blanche, took over until a replacement could be confirmed.
Blanche told Fox News, “I think that to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward."
Host Jesse Watters replied, “I’m not sure you totally get what people feel about that.