January 6, 2026
One. Three. And 18. These are all important numbers related to the Epstein files and every single one of them is a blatant violation of the law.
Let’s start with one. 1%. That’s what the department of justice admitted to a federal judge today is the actual number of Epstein documents they’ve released so far. According to this status report to a federal judge in New York – signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi – she admits –the DOJ has posted approximately 12,285 Epstein or Maxwell related documents – to the Epstein library page on the DOJ website. That translates to about 125,575 total pages. But Bondi also admits in the letter – that there are “more than two million documents” that still have not been released and are “in various phases of review.” Now — the fact is the Epstein transparency act which President Trump signed into law in November is extremely clear. It says all of the Epstein related files and documents in the possession of the department of justice shall be released. Not some of them…not one percent of them. All of them. Obviously that hasn’t happened.
Let’s move on to the number three…as in three days. That’s how many days the department of justice is late in delivering a report to Congress — that explains why DOJ made the redactions they did to the Epstein documents. If you’ve looked at the Epstein documents at all you know – there are pages and pages of redactions. Which has raised a lot of questions because the Epstein transparency act is clear on this too….there are only specific things that can be redacted like the names and personally identifiable information of victims or information that would jeopardize national security. But everything else – must be released – including if the information embarrass someone or ruins their reputation. Regardless of the legality of *what they’re redacting – because that’s a conversation for a different day – the Epstein transparency act is clear that the DOJ must explain *why* they are making every single redaction. And that explanation must be in the form of a report to congress and must be posted to the federal register. The deadline for DOJ to submit that report – was three days ago.
Lastly the number 18. That’s a simple one. The Epstein transparency act gave the DOJ a deadline to release all the Epstein related files. That deadline was December 19. And here we are 18 days later on January 6 and as I just reported we’ve only seen 1% of the files.
So – what’s the punishment for defying the law in this way? Well – whether there should be a consequence is something you have to decide for yourself. As for what a consequence would look like??? In the end that will depend on congress, it could be a censure, it could be an impeachment, it could even be a federal lawsuit against the DOJ. Regardless of what it is – it would require support from both Democrats and Republicans. And here’s the thing – just because every single member of the house minus one republican and every single senator voted yes to release the Epstein files doesn’t necessarily mean they would all support a consequence for not releasing the files. Imposing some kind of consequence would require Republicans to possibly punish President Trump’s cabinet member or the Trump administration and that is a politically tricky place for them to be. Now – obviously, Democrats aren’t afraid to sanction the Trump administration in some way – I’m sure they’d welcome it in this case — but it’s unclear if Republicans are willing to take that extraordinary step especially in a midterm election year.
Read the letter from the DOJ to the Judge here.
