President Donald Trump has successfully evaded his trickiest quagmire—as quickly as the Epstein Files release came into view of the news cycle, it has essentially disappeared.
The Department of Justice was legally required to release the files by December 19, 2025, a month after Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 19. But for the third straight week, release of the Epstein Files has lapsed as DOJ officials continue to tell a federal judge they require additional time to review over a million documents potentially related to the Epstein Files. They claim to be taking important steps to make sure no victims are exposed through release, though this excuse has been met with skepticism by those demanding the Trump administration make good on his promise.
Among those critics is Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has repeatedly questioned the actions of DOJ officials, who have only released an estimated 1 percent of all documents related to the Epstein Files. But, in an interview with CNN this week, Massie told host Jake Tapper that his deepest concerns aren’t about the volume of material being kept from public eyes, but specific documents that could spell trouble for elite members of American society.
“They’re still trying to protect billionaires, politically connected people, and trying to obscure the involvement of our own intelligence agencies,” Massie told reporters on Capitol Hill only days after the New Year.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) has spearheaded the push for full disclosure along with Massie and has demanded federal judge Paul Engelmayer appoint a special master to oversee the mandatory release of the files.
“Frankly, the DOJ should welcome this,” Khanna said during an appearance with Lawrence O’Donnell in early January. “Have an independent person. We’re not saying Massie or I should do it. We’re not saying the survivors’ lawyers should do it. We’re just saying, have a judge appoint an independent person to interpret the statute and have a release of these documents.”
Though officials with the DOJ argue their failure to meet the release deadline is in an effort to protect victims of Epstein’s sordid crimes, survivors issued a statement refuting this logic. “It is alarming that the United States Department of Justice, the very agency tasked with upholding the law, has violated the law, both by withholding massive quantities of documents, and by failing to redact survivor identities,” read part of the statement from a dozen women who suffered at the hands of Epstein and his associates.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche have argued in the press that the volume of Epstein Files is enormous and that it was always going to take weeks, if not months longer than anticipated for a full review and release of the documents. But that excuse has not satisfied survivors or members of Congress who are accusing the Trump DOJ of dodging its responsibilities in an effort to protect political and business friends who have a history of mingling with Epstein.
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“Trump’s DOJ has failed to submit a report to Congress, which is required to include a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, without redactions,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote in a post to X this week. “What are they trying to hide?”
Trump has repeatedly suggested he has nothing to hide and that the Epstein Files are a “Democrat hoax,” despite the fact that his candidacy for presidency relied, in part, on the claim that an interconnected network of elite business, academic, and tech interests were working in tandem to deprive the average American of economic opportunities while living lives of depraved abundance. At its core, Make America Great Again was a promise to hand power back to the people who had been iced out of the private-jet, getaway-island economy for those at the top of American society. For the Trump administration to slow-walk disclosing those who took greatest advantage of their status is a smack in the face of many everyday Americans who powered MAGA’s ascendancy.
But for the Trump administration, Epstein is already clearly in the rearview mirror. Replaced, whether naturally or artificially, by bigger, more pressing concerns such as the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, the potential ouster of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran, a renewed fight with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and a heightened push to “take” Greenland. With Epstein long dead, millions of documents slowly being processed, and an assortment of new frivolities on the main stage in the American political theater, the Trump administration has managed to shift the public away from questions of elite sexual exploitation and toward a carousel of foreign crises and domestic vendettas.
