The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) latest disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act — a long list of names as disparate as Janis Joplin, Julian Assange and former Vice President Dick Cheney — has sparked an outcry on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are accusing the DOJ of failing to comply with its final obligation under the law.
The Saturday disclosure was designed to be the Justice Department’s last word on the files, explaining why any documents were withheld and providing the legal basis for shielding any names.
Instead, lawmakers say the department skirted its legal obligation for greater transparency and muddied the waters by releasing an extensive list of names, ranging from celebrities to politicos, with little explanation accompanying them.
“This is once again the DOJ covering up the truth,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote Tuesday afternoon on the social platform X.
The list, totaling more than 250 names, includes a number of well-known figures, from Mick Jagger to Queen Elizabeth, as well as political figures on both sides of the aisle.
It’s unclear what ties, if any, several of the figures have to Jeffrey Epstein. Many appear to simply be referenced in media clips sent by the convicted sex offender or by the FBI as it shared a roundup of news reports that also included clips referencing Epstein.
“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,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the sponsors of the bill that required the public release for the files, wrote on X.
“DOJ violated the law by not providing a reason for the redactions, has protected people like Sultan and Les Wexner and many other powerful people Rep. Thomas Massie and I are exposing, and then chose to unredact the names without context,” Khanna added. He referenced Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret who was deposed Wednesday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee; and Emirati Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who recently resigned from his company after it was revealed he penned an email to Epstein referencing a torture video.
“The DOJ is once again purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email,” Khanna said.
The Epstein law gave the DOJ limited options for redacting names beyond those of Epstein’s victims, and even in the case of ongoing investigations, it said any redactions must be “narrowly tailored and temporary.”
But the DOJ’s Saturday letter said the department also withheld documents or made redactions it believed should be covered under attorney-client privilege, including materials prepared by attorneys. The letter also said it withheld some materials under “deliberative-process privilege,” an exemption used in public records cases to shield materials that show how the government reached a decision.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said that’s a square violation of the law, which did not allow for anything to be shielded under that claim.
“They’re citing deliberative process privilege in order not to release some of the documents,” Massie said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“The problem with that is the bill that Ro Khanna and I wrote says that they must release internal memos and notes and emails about their decisions on whether to prosecute or not prosecute, whether to investigate or not investigate.”
Massie said he was specifically aiming to understand the DOJ’s rationale for not charging anyone in connection with Epstein beyond his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, despite a list prepared by prosecutors detailing possible co-conspirators. Lawmakers have also been probing why Epstein was initially given a light sentence that allowed for work release.
“It’s important they follow that because then we could find why they didn’t prosecute Leslie Wexner,” Massie said. “What was the decision tree there? And also, why in 2008 they gave Jeffrey Epstein such a light sentence?”
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) also saw the volume of names as a way to confuse the public.
“It’s to muddy the waters. It is to lump in obvious people who have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and his sex trafficking ring with other people who may be accomplices or may have been involved, and it’s a further effort to cover up for the pedophiles and the co-conspirators,” he said during a Monday appearance on MS NOW before turning to the shielding of various records.
“It is particularly egregious when you hear them talk about the deliberative process privilege. The bill very specifically requires them to turn over all of the type of documents that would be included in the deliberative process privilege. Now, it’s one thing for Congress to demand that — it’s another thing in a piece of legislation that Donald Trump
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signed into law for him to then turn around and say, ‘No, I’m not complying with the law.’”
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
The department’s letter listed “all government officials and ‘politically exposed persons’” in the files, and it did note that some may have little or no ties to Epstein.
“Names appear in the files released under the Act in a wide variety of contexts. For example, some individuals had extensive direct email contact with Epstein or Maxwell while other individuals are mentioned only in a portion of a document (including press reporting) that on its face is unrelated to the Epstein and Maxwell matters,” the letter states.
But Jayapal, who along with several other lawmakers was listed, said the structure of the letter flouted the law and made it tougher to know who may actually be implicated in wrongdoing.
“They’re covering up in two ways: 1. They’re lumping people like me and, for instance, Marilyn Monroe, with people like Lex Wexner and Alan Dershowitz, and even Trump, who were very much a part of Epstein’s ring. 2. And we believe they’re still leaving out the names of people involved,” she wrote on X, noting that references to her are entirely in press clippings.
“The DOJ is saying that this is transparency and that they are listing everyone ‘involved’ in the files. To lump people like me in with actual predators who are listed in these files for wrongdoing is a purposeful attempt from Bondi and the DOJ to blur the truth,” she wrote.
“AND in doing so, the DOJ is empowering right-wing media personalities across the country to do the same and make it harder for the American people to figure out what the truth actually is.”
