President Donald Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently sitting on roughly two million documents relating to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and one prosecutor is arguing that the fact the DOJ continues to keep it under wraps is damning for Trump.
In a Tuesday post to his X account, attorney Tristan Snell — a former New York assistant attorney general who prosecuted the Trump University scam — wrote that he had "led a LOT of document productions" in his two decades as a professional litigator. He asserted that the Trump DOJ's slow-walking of the Epstein files could mean that the administration is not eager to share their details with the general public.
"If you only release 1 percent of a promised pool of docs — like DOJ has with the Epstein files — that means you have a LOT to hide," Snell wrote. "It means the other 99 percent of the documents are RIDDLED with toxic evidence."
As of December 19, the Trump administration has been in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required that the DOJ release all relevant evidence within 30 days of the legislation being signed into law. The law allows for the DOJ to have discretion to make redactions to protect the names and identifying information of victims, as well as to safeguard ongoing investigations. However, the legislation specifically forbids redactions out of concern for reputational damage.
According to CNN, the DOJ has released 12,285 documents out of more than two million, which are still being reviewed. In a court filing earlier this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that "substantial work remains to be done."
"This work has required and will continue to require substantial Department resources," they wrote in the filing. "We noted in our prior letter the hundreds of attorneys dedicated to the review at the time of that letter. Currently, and anticipated for the next few weeks ahead, in the range of over 400 lawyers across the Department will dedicate all or a substantial portion of their workday to the Department’s efforts to comply with the Act."
The DOJ announced on Christmas Eve that it had been made aware of more than one million new Epstein-related documents requiring review. Department officials issued a call for volunteers to come into the office over the Christmas and New Years' holidays to process the documents.