Five Million Files and Counting: How the DOJ Keeps Running Out the Clock on The Epstein Release (1/1/26)

The Department of Justice has responded to mounting pressure over the Epstein records by claiming it still has more than five million additional files to review, a figure that sounds less like transparency and more like institutional stalling. After nearly two decades of investigations, plea deals, prosecutions, civil litigation, and internal reviews, the idea that the DOJ is only now discovering the sheer scale of its Epstein archive strains credibility. This is not a new case, not a cold file pulled from a forgotten warehouse, but one of the most litigated, scrutinized, and publicly exposed criminal scandals in modern history. The implication that millions of documents remain unexamined suggests either catastrophic incompetence or a deliberate strategy to slow-walk disclosure until public attention fades. Either way, it reinforces the perception that the DOJ has never had a coherent or urgent plan to fully confront Epstein’s network.


Critically, the DOJ’s “five million files” explanation functions as a bureaucratic shield rather than a meaningful update, offering volume as a substitute for accountability. Survivors, journalists, and lawmakers are not asking the DOJ to skim every scrap of paper in real time; they are demanding targeted transparency about known co-conspirators, prosecutorial decisions, and prior investigative failures. Invoking an overwhelming backlog conveniently avoids answering why so many leads were ignored, why federal charges were abandoned in 2007, and why key figures were never seriously pursued. At this point, the DOJ’s reliance on scale sounds less like diligence and more like delay, reinforcing a long-standing pattern in the Epstein case: when clarity is demanded, the department responds with process; when accountability is required, it pleads administrative burden.



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