Lawmakers who pushed the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files are dissatisfied with its latest disclosure of high-profile names mentioned in the three million documents, believing the DOJ is being purposefully vague to protect those with close ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Saturday evening, the DOJ sent a six-page letter to Congress, including the names of celebrities, politicians, businesspeople and more who were mentioned at least once in the files. But the extensive list failed to explain how the people are connected to the pedophile financier and his fellow offender.
Names ranged from President Donald Trump, who was once friends with Epstein but ceased communication before his 2008 Florida conviction, to apparently unrelated figures whose names happen to have been mentioned, like Marilyn Monroe, the Hollywood star who died when Epstein was nine years old, and the singer Janis Joplin, who died in 1970.
“The DOJ is once again purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email,” Rep. Ro Khanna, one of the lawmakers leading the effort, said on X.
“To have Janis Joplin, who died when Epstein was 17, in the same list as Larry Nassar, who went to prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of young women and child pornography, with no clarification of how either was mentioned in the files is absurd,” Khanna added.
Khanna called on the DOJ to “stop protecting predators” and release all the files with only the names of survivors redacted.
The Independent has asked the Justice Department for comment.
The letter, which was required per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, was sent to members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department had “released ‘all records, documents, communications and investigative materials in possession of the Department’ that relate to’ Epstein,” signaling it would be the final release.
It listed names of “politically exposed persons” named at least once. However, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted that the lawmakers never defined what that means.
As a result, names such as Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Cher, Beyonce and other notable celebrities are listed because they are mentioned in emails. But that does not mean the individuals had any connection with, or even knew, Epstein.
Current lawmakers, who may have been mentioned in the DOJ’s press briefings or FBI daily news emails, are also mentioned.
“So one loser sends another loser a NEWS ARTICLE with my name in it and the cover up clan at the DOJ wants to put me in the same drawer as Donald Trump,” Rep. Eric Swalwell wrote on X.
Other lawmakers joined the call for more disclosures, despite the DOJ signalling that the recent three-million-document dump is the final release of the Epstein files.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who has also helped lead the effort for transparency on Epstein, said that the Justice Department is “missing names” on the list. She also promised to push for more disclosures.
“I want to be abundantly clear about the DOJ memo released tonight: Citing ‘Work Product Privilege’ will NOT save the DOJ from releasing all the Epstein files,” Mace wrote.
“If they can give the names, then they can give them in unredacted files. The list is an admission that they can remove those redactions,” she added.
“Not buying this at all and Americans shouldn’t either. I went to the ‘unredacted’ files yesterday and HUNDREDS of pages are still completely blacked out,” Rep. Laura Friedman said on X.
Although more than three million documents have been released, officials initially indicated six million files could be released. Some documents are being withheld because they meet the criteria laid out by Congress in the act – such as protecting the medical privacy of victims, containing images or descriptions of child sexual abuse, being involved in an ongoing prosecution, or other reasoning.
Members of Congress, such as Khanna and his co-sponsor on the Epstein files push, Rep. Thomas Massie, have viewed the unredacted version of the files at the DOJ. They’ve accused Bondi and other officials of purposefully redacting the names of powerful individuals to protect them from prosecution.
No person mentioned on the list has been charged with a crime associated with Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes, other than the two themselves. Being named in the Epstein files does not mean a person participated in, or even knew of, Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes.
Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial in a New York jail in 2019, while Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking offenses.
