By Steve Neavling
Frustration is growing inside the Justice Department as lawyers race to meet a Friday deadline to release thousands of pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related records, CNN reports, citing multiple sources familiar with the process.
Attorneys have been tasked with reviewing massive document batches — sometimes more than 1,000 pages each — and making redaction decisions involving victim privacy, executive privilege, and sensitive law enforcement material. Several sources said lawyers in DOJ’s National Security Division lack clear guidance on how much information should be disclosed under the new transparency law.
Counterintelligence attorneys were pulled off most of their regular work to focus on the Epstein files, though some declined to participate, the sources said. Congress mandated the release after months of public pressure and unfulfilled promises by the Trump administration to open the records.
Even once the files are released, extensive redactions are expected, raising concerns that the transparency fight will continue beyond the deadline. Legal specialists outside the department are already bracing for possible errors or over-redaction caused by the speed and scale of the review.
“Either they’re going to screw it up or they’re going to withhold things. It wouldn’t surprise me,” said one lawyer awaiting the release. “Some of it may be incompetence as much as deliberate.”
