Justice Department now said to be reviewing 5.2 million pages of Epstein files

Washington: The Justice Department is seeking to enlist about 400 lawyers to review roughly 5.2 million pages of Epstein files documents, an effort that is drawing in prosecutors who work on national security and criminal cases, and in US attorneys’ offices in New York and Florida, according to people familiar with the matter.

The number represents a more precise, and potentially much larger, figure than previous estimates provided by the department.

Congress required the Justice Department to release its files related to the investigations of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by December 19. The department released about 100,000 pages on that date, and said in the days that followed that at least 1 million more documents still needed to be reviewed.

Since late November, the department has assigned nearly 200 lawyers from the national security division to review the documents and remove any information about victims, or anything that would compromise continuing investigations or national security. Now, Justice Department officials have told employees that they need more help to accomplish the task.

The document review is expected to take until at least Jan. 20, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Trump administration had already drawn the ire of Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress for appearing to break the law setting the deadline to release the documents.

The Justice Department has defended its handling of the matter. “We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible,” the department said on social media.

But the disclosure that only a fraction of the documents have been released has only added to the troubles surrounding the rollout of the material. After the initial release on Dec. 19, some photographs were removed from the online collection because of what the department described as concerns about them possibly containing information about victims.

One image showed a credenza with an open drawer containing other photos, including at least one of Donald Trump. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said the image was removed not to protect the president but because of concerns about whether that image contained any victims. The image was later restored to the collection.