A Channel 4 News investigation has cast doubt on Pam Bondi’s DOJ claim that it has released the full cache of Jeffrey Epstein-related records, reporting that the material made public so far may represent only a small fraction of the digital evidence federal investigators collected.
Channel 4 reviewed internal emails exchanged among federal investigators and prosecutors and reported that teams working the case expected to process between 20 and 40 terabytes of data seized from Epstein’s properties, including his Florida mansion, New York townhouse and private island. The broadcaster also reported that emails from the early stages of evidence processing in June 2020 discussed data “totaling” up to 50 terabytes, and that a later internal email referenced about 14.6 terabytes of archived data.
Based on those internal estimates, Channel 4 calculated that the most recent public release, described as more than 300 gigabytes, amounts to roughly 2% of the data discussed in the emails, a comparison that focuses on storage size rather than page counts.
The report arrived days after Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress the department had finished its disclosures under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. In a Feb. 14 letter to the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Bondi and Blanche said DOJ “released all ‘records, documents, communications and investigative materials in the possession of the Department’ that ‘relate to’” Epstein across nine categories laid out in the law.
The Feb. 14 letter also said DOJ withheld or redacted certain information under recognized privileges, including deliberative-process, attorney-client and work-product protections, and said it made required disclosures to Congress about redactions and “politically exposed persons” referenced in the released materials.
DOJ has emphasized the scale of what it has released. On Jan. 30, the department said it had published nearly 3.5 million responsive pages in compliance with the transparency law, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
The Channel 4 reporting, however, suggests the size of the public repository may not reflect the size of the underlying evidence pool, particularly where material exists in large media files, archives, or formats that are difficult to open and review. Channel 4 quoted internal communications describing files that were too large to open and others that were effectively “invisible” to reviewers, including an investigator’s analogy comparing the seizure to papers dumped from about 100,000 filing cabinets into a single pile.
The new report fueled renewed criticism from some lawmakers who argue DOJ’s “all files” language conflicts with what they believe remains unreleased or inaccessible. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., wrote over the weekend that “not all the Epstein files have been released,” and said DOJ’s stated reasons “will not hold up in a court of law.”
DOJ’s required letter to lawmakers includes an extensive list of high-profile names referenced in the files, even when individuals appear only in passing, such as in press clippings, and that the letter provides little context for how each name appears.
Channel 4 did not claim that the unreleased data contains specific, previously undisclosed allegations against particular people. Its reporting focused on the gap between storage volumes discussed internally and the size of the public-facing release, at a time when DOJ says it has completed disclosures required by statute.
