Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the Justice Department has mostly finished releasing records required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. This shows that millions of additional pages found during the agency’s review will not be made public, except for a limited number of documents under court restrictions.
In an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on This Week, Blanche defended the department’s release on Friday. He explained that the agency worked to fix cases where victims or their lawyers noted that identifying information was not properly removed. “We took great care, as I explained on Friday, to make sure that we protected victims,” Blanche said, describing the “review of 3.5 million pieces of paper that were released on Friday.”
When asked if more documents would be released, Blanche pointed to a small group still waiting for court approval. “We have released a small number of documents, as I noted on Friday, that we’re waiting for a judge to allow us to release because of a protective order,” he said. Blanche added, “this review is over,” stating that the department reviewed over six million pieces of paper, along with thousands of videos and tens of thousands of images as required by the statute.
The Justice Department’s press release on January 30 mentioned that it published over 3 million additional pages related to the law. Together with earlier disclosures, this brought the total to nearly 3.5 million pages, along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The department stated that it erred on the side of over-collecting materials. It listed reasons for not producing some items, including duplicates between investigations, materials withheld under privileges, items withheld due to legal exceptions, and items that were completely unrelated to the Epstein and Maxwell cases.
“This review is over!”
Deputy AG @DAGToddBlanche appears to suggest that the DOJ plans to withhold MILLIONS of Epstein files.
Blanche said Friday the DOJ had identified “over 6M” Epstein files, but only released around 3.5M Friday. pic.twitter.com/j0l00a5oul
— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) February 1, 2026
Blanche’s comments came as survivors and lawmakers criticized the department’s handling of the files. Stephanopoulos read a statement from Epstein’s victims, noting that survivors’ names and identifying information were exposed while “the men who abused us remain hidden and protected.” He asked about future releases. Blanche responded that when the department hears from a victim or attorney about an improper redaction, “we immediately fixed that,” describing the issue as affecting only “.001 percent of all the materials.”
On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the size of the release compared to what the department claimed it reviewed. “They say they collected 6 million pages, but they’re only releasing 3 million. What happened to the other three million?” Schumer said in comments posted by Senate Democrats.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of the transparency law, also pressed the department for answers and sought access to unredacted materials, according to Blanche’s comments and prior reports on lawmakers’ push for fuller disclosure. Blanche criticized what he viewed as hasty complaints from Capitol Hill, naming Massie and Schumer during the interview. “There is no way they have spent any time looking at the materials we produced,” he said, noting the department released the files on Friday and faced criticism by Saturday.
ABC News reported that key Democrats demanded explanations after the partial release, while Blanche mentioned that the department withheld certain pages due to victim protections and the presence of child sexual abuse material, among other reasons.
The documents come from the long-running federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 while waiting for trial. The new release has revived attention on the case and the demands from Congress and survivors for full compliance with the law, even as the Justice Department stated it has completed the review mandated by the statute.
