Vanity Fair: DOJ Cites Redactions in Delay of Epstein Files Release

After President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, hopes on both sides of the political aisle were high regarding what would be revealed in the hotly anticipated trove of Department of Justice documents related to that agency's investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

But when the December 19, 2025 deadline for the release of the files arrived, the document drop was less revelatory than either the left or right expected. A letter from the files that appeared to be from Epstein to Larry Nassar, the former physician for the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team who is currently serving a 175-year sentence for multiple sexual crimes, was apparently a fake. Thousands and thousands of context-free photos depicted mundane matters such as real estate, pets, or previously known associates. Epstein in a mud mask or his toes in Ghislaine Maxwell's cleavage might be unsettling, but is hardly what former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino once claimed would be revealed when the first dump of Epstein files dropped.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghistlane Maxwell, in a photo from in the December, 2025 Epstein files release.

But the files we saw in December were less that 1 percent of what the Department of Justice has on hand, Attorney General Pam Bondi said earlier this month. In a January 5, 2026 update sent to Paul A. Engelmayer the Southern District of New York judge overseeing the court-ordered document release, Bondi wrote that more than two million additional documents remained 'in various phases of review,” with around 400 justice department lawyers and 100 FBI document analysts continuing to work on the files.

Those efforts didn't begin when the Act was signed, Vanity Fair reported last March. The FBI's New York field office has been “literally all hands on deck” to review files released to the Epstein investigation, a situation described by one FBI veteran as a “ludicrous.' The entire process “seemed to fly in the face of how federal cases are handled in the modern era,” Noah Shachtman reported at the time.

Those hundreds of analysts and agents aren't likely to get a break any time soon, if a new memo from Bondi is any indication. Now saying that “over 500 reviewers” are working on the files, Bondi tells Engelmayer and Berman that “inevitable glitches due to the sheer volume of materials' have caused further delays of additional document releases. Another time suck: the DoJ's need to make extensive redactions—an already controversial practice given the heavily blacked out pages seen in the initial file release.

Many of the documents and photos from the Epstein files, such as this one depicting Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Ghislaine Maxwell, feature significant redactions.

“This is a time-intensive process due to the voluminous materials, the idiosyncratic nature of many of the materials, and the need to protect victim-identifying information,” Bondi writes. “The Department will continue to apprise the Court of its progress in this regard,” she continues, but does not provide a timeline.

Frustrating, yes, but a situation Americans might have to accept. Though Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie asked to Engelmayer to appoint an independent monitor to oversee the file release, as they suspect “serious misconduct by the Department of Justice,” the judge's hands appear to be tied at the moment. According to a letter sent to Engelmayer Friday by US Attorney Jay Clayton, the judge 'lacks the authority' to appoint that neutral party, the Associated Press reports, as Khanna and Massie lack standing with the court that would allow them to make that demand.

Via statement, Khanna says that Clayton misunderstood their request, which was denied as neither Khanna nor Massie were involved in the criminal case against Maxwell, which resulted in the Epstein investigation's sole conviction. 'We are informing the Court of serious misconduct by the Department of Justice that requires a remedy, one we believe this Court has the authority to provide, and which victims themselves have requested,' Khanna says. “Our purpose is to ensure that DOJ complies with its representations to the Court and with its legal obligations under our law.”

Cover Star Teyana Taylor on Her Breakout Year

First Look: Meet Love Story’s John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette

The Roommate Scandal That Has Downtown New York Talking

Why Ashley St. Clair Is Suing Elon Musk’s xAI

RFK Jr.’s Eugenics-Coded Crusade

Autopsy Report: Inside the Murdoch Dynasty’s Final Moments

I Was Held Hostage in Panama in 1989. I Know the Real Cost of Trump’s “America First.”

The Life—and Shocking Murder—of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten

Belle Burden On Her Family’s “Legacy of Infidelity”

Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the “Junkyard Dogs”: The White House Chief of Staff On Trump’s Second Term

From the Archive: The Serial Killer and the Texas Mom Who Stopped Him