Lawmakers pursue full compliance with Epstein transparency law

Ryan Tarinelli, CQ-Roll Call on Feb 2, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The push to force the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files appears nowhere near settled on Capitol Hill after the Justice Department’s latest document drop, with lawmakers requesting meetings and seeking to gain further access to the documents.

The skepticism from Capitol Hill underscores a loss of faith from lawmakers that the Trump administration would fully comply with the law Congress passed last year that mandated the release of investigative documents on Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., main backers of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, sent a letter asking to take up an offer outlined by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week.

Blanche, at a Friday press conference announcing the release of new documents, said congressional lawmakers could arrange to review unredacted versions of the document production.

“We have seen a blanket approach to redactions in some areas, while in other cases, victim names were not redacted at all,” the lawmakers wrote. “Congress cannot properly assess the Department’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record.”

The two lawmakers said they were requesting to review the unredacted records “given ongoing reported concerns regarding the scope and consistency of redactions in the documents released to date.”

Also requesting a meeting was Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. Raskin in a letter said lawmakers wanted to make sure the department was not redacting information on the basis that it could embarrass government officials or public figures.

“Our review is particularly urgent because DOJ itself claims to have identified over 6 million potentially responsive pages, but after releasing only about half of them — including over 200,000 pages that DOJ redacted or withheld — says strangely that it has fully complied with the Act,” the letter states.

The files on Epstein, who died in custody in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking, have revealed further perspective into the dead financier’s ties to a wide network of public figures. Among those mentioned in the files are President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Elon Musk.

The Justice Department has also faced questions about the breadth of documents it has said are being withheld. The Justice Department said it identified more than 6 million pages that were potentially covered by the law but acknowledged the total production from the department was nearly 3.5 million pages.

Blanche on Friday said the law allows the department to withhold certain information, such as the personally identifiable information of victims, depiction of child sexual abuse material, images of physical abuse and information that would jeopardize an active federal investigation.

And in an interview that aired Sunday, Blanche said “our doors are open” if members of Congress want to come review the redacted materials. “That’s absolutely, totally fine. We have nothing to hide,” Blanche said in an ABC interview.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said it was “outrageous” that the department would withhold such a wide swath of the Epstein files, something that was not consistent with the law.

Garcia, in an appearance on The Parnas Perspective, also touched on larger concerns that the rollout has been plagued with issues, saying the department has at times put out the names of survivors without redaction.

“But what they haven’t put out are their names of the co-conspirators and all the men that actually raped and abused children and women. And so until we get those names, until we get the rest of the files, we’re not going to stop. Our investigation is just getting started,” Garcia said.

He also showed no signs of slowing a Democrat-backed push to hold Attorney General Pamela Bondi in contempt of court over a 2025 subpoena from the House Oversight panel that demanded investigative files on Epstein.

Garcia also committed to hold Bondi in contempt of Congress if Democrats retake power in the midterm election and the subpoena situation has not changed.

“And it’s not just that. We’ll subpoena every single person involved with the Epstein cover-up and scandal and get justice for the survivors,” Garcia said.

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