Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday morning that the Department of Justice would not release all of its files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In an interview with Fox News, Blanche said the release would not be exhaustive, in an apparent conflict with the law President Donald Trump signed in November dictating the release of the documents by Dec. 19.
“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said. “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”
Blanche was previously Trump’s attorney and had multiple conversations with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for recruiting and grooming young girls so that Epstein and his clients could abuse them.
Trump only signed the bill dictating the release of the files after months of fighting against both Democrats and some members of his own party, once declaring that supporting the release of the files would be considered a “hostile act” against the administration.
The release comes following months of scrutiny surrounding the president and his relationship with the notorious sex trafficker. For years, it’s been known that Trump and Epstein had been friends, though the precise details of the friendship had been less clear.
Still, snippets, like a quote from a now-infamous New York magazine article from 2002, in which Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy,” led to great interest in the president’s relationship with the sex offender.
“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002.
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Other developments from 2025 only deepened interest, such as when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had written Epstein a poem inside a crudely drawn form of a naked woman as part of a birthday book. Though Trump denies having done so, Congress later released images and records that appear to confirm the reporting.
“Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?” Trump wrote, according to documents released by Congress.
The Epstein scandal has also grown to engulf other high-profile figures, like Harvard professor Larry Summers, who has been a figure in the Democratic establishment for decades.
In documents released earlier this year by Congress, it was revealed that Summers had been in frequent communication with Epstein, even asking him for advice in the pursuit of a woman that he described as a mentee.
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New revelations have also clarified Epstein’s role in international relations, brokering deals for Israel, among other countries, and frequently communicating with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, among other world leaders, and figures ranging from former Trump advisor Steve Bannon to linguist Noam Chomsky.
Ahead of Friday’s release, CNN reported that the Justice Department was racing to redact thousands of pages of documents, with insiders describing the redaction process as a top priority for counterintelligence specialists. At the same time, members of Congress, like Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., have warned that officials at the Justice Department could face legal repercussions if they do not follow the law as passed by Congress.
At the core of the issue, however, is the question of whether the release of the files will represent a step towards justice for the victims of Epstein, who have been advocating for transparency from the government for years and increasing pressure in recent months.
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