Judge declines to appoint special master to oversee DOJ’s release of remaining Epstein files
Jeffrey Epstein is seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, December 19, 2025 (U.S. Justice Department)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday declined to appoint a special master to oversee the Justice Department’s production of the remaining Epstein files, despite “legitimate concerns” about whether the DOJ is faithfully complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The Dec. 19 deadline the law imposed for the release of all files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has come and gone, and at least two members of Congress say the Justice Department is still in possession of as many as two million potentially relevant documents.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said last week they’re still reviewing and redacting material from the investigations into Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to comply with court orders about protecting victims.
Several Epstein victims wrote letters supporting legislators’ push for a neutral monitor.
In his opinion released Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said the “questions raised by the Representatives and the victims are undeniably important and timely” and raise “raise legitimate concerns about whether DOJ is faithfully complying with federal law.”
However, the judge concluded he lacks jurisdiction to supervise the Justice Department’s compliance with the Epstein Act.
“The Representatives have not articulated how the criminal statutes under which Maxwell was charged would empower the Court to enforce the EFTA,” Engelmayer wrote.
The opinion also said the members of Congress — Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — have no role in the matter.
“The Representatives do not seek to opine on any live issue before the Court,” Engelmayer wrote. “And the appointment of a neutral to supervise DOJ’s compliance with the EFTA is far afield from any matter pending before the Court.”
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, following blowback the Trump administration received seeking the release of materials related to their probe of Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019. President Donald Trump signed the act into law on Nov. 19.
Materials released to date include a trove of photographs and court records, including a complaint to the FBI about Epstein that was filed years before he was first investigated for child sex abuse, and documents containing previously unknown details about plans for Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
The files released so far, however, have yet to show evidence of wrongdoing on the part of famous, powerful men, against the expectations of many of those who have been pushing for the files’ release.
A sign marks the location of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) headquarters building on April 30, 2025, in Washington, DC. J. David Ake/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Three million pages from the Justice Department’s files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are being released to the public today, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press briefing Friday.
Blanche said the release will include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to the Epstein case.
Blanche said in total there were 6 million documents, but due to the presence of child sexual abuse material and victim rights obligations, not all documents are being made public in the current release.
Blanche pushed back on the notion that the DOJ might have protected President Donald Trump from his name appearing in the files.
“We comply with the act, and there is no ‘protect President Trump.’ We didn’t protect or not protect anybody. I mean, I think that there’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. And there’s nothing I can do about that,” Blanche told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.
Blanche said there was “no oversight” by the White House about what the material showed.
He added that if there was evidence in the files that others had abused victims, the DOJ would pursue charges against them.
A team of 500 attorneys from the Justice Department worked around the clock to redact and review material, Blanche said.
“If any member of Congress wishes to review any portions of the response of production in any unredacted form, they’re welcome to make arrangements with the department to do so, and we’re happy to do that,” said Blanche.
Friday’s tranche is the latest in a series of releases that began last month in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed Congress overwhelmingly and was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Nov. 19. The act gave the Justice Department 30 days to make publicly available all unclassified records pertaining to investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
The bill contains several exceptions that allow for withholding or redacting records, notably to protect the privacy of Epstein’s victims.
The DOJ to date had posted to its online Epstein library roughly 12,000 documents totaling about 125,000 pages — just a small fraction of the millions of records the department has been reviewing.
Those materials included a record of a complaint to the FBI filed in 1996, years before the disgraced financier was first investigated for child sex abuse. The documents also included new details about the government’s investigation into potential accomplices as well as thousands of photographs of Epstein’s New York and U.S. Virgin Islands properties that were searched by the FBI after Epstein’s arrest in 2019.
The initial release of the files also contained numerous old photos of Epstein traveling with former President Bill Clinton, including pictures of Clinton lounging in a jacuzzi and one of him swimming with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking of minors and other offenses.
The images, which were released without any context or background information, contained little information related to Trump, leading a spokesperson for Clinton to accuse the DOJ of selectively disclosing the pictures to imply wrongdoing on the part of Clinton where he said there is none.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” Angel Urena said. “This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”
In an interview with ABC News on the day of the initial release, Blanche said that every document that mentions Trump will eventually be released, “assuming it’s consistent with the law.”
“There’s no effort to hold anything back because there’s the name Donald J. Trump or anybody else’s name,” Blanche said.
Both Trump and Clinton have denied all wrongdoing and have denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
Federal prosecutors have indicated in recent court filings that hundreds of government lawyers have spent weeks reviewing “several millions of pages” of materials — including documents, audio and video files — in preparation for disclosure to the public.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act came after the Trump administration faced months of blowback from its announcement last July that they would be releasing no additional Epstein files, after several top officials — including FBI Director Kash Patel and former Deputy Director Dan Bongino — had, prior to joining the administration, accused the government of shielding information regarding the Epstein case.
The files released thus far have yet to show evidence of wrongdoing on the part of famous, powerful men, against the expectations of many of those who pushed for the files’ release.
Epstein owned two private islands in the Virgin Islands and large properties in New York City, New Mexico and Palm Beach, Florida, where he came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his seaside home for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for sex crimes charges after reaching a controversial non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.
In 2019, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Epstein on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.
The FBI and Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office are looking for missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard. FBI
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) — Ashlee Buzzard, the mom of missing 9-year-old Melodee Buzzard, has been taken into custody in connection with the investigation into her missing daughter, sources told ABC News.
Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that Melodee’s body was found in early December in Utah in an area where Melodee and Ashlee Buzzard traveled in October. Law enforcement believes Melodee was killed, and that she was likely dead in October, before she was known to be missing, sources said.
Ashlee Buzzard was taken into custody following DNA results from the recovered remains, sources said.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has not yet commented and only said it will share “major developments” in Melodee’s case at a news conference on Tuesday.
The investigation into Melodee’s disappearance was sparked on Oct. 14 when a school district administrator reported her “extended absence” to authorities, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities determined Melodee and Ashlee Buzzard left their Lompoc, California, home on Oct. 7 for a three-day road trip that took them to the Nebraska area, the sheriff’s office said.
Melodee was last seen alive on Oct. 9 near the Colorado-Utah border, according to authorities.
Ashlee Buzzard returned home to Lompoc on Oct. 10 with the car she and Melodee had rented on Oct. 7 — but Melodee was not with her, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities have claimed Ashlee Buzzard wore wigs and swapped license plates during the trip, and they said Ashlee Buzzard didn’t cooperate with the search for Melodee.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump on Thursday sued JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion, alleging the bank closed his accounts for “political and social motivations,” according to a court filing.
The lawsuit says in early 2021 the bank notified Trump and his businesses that several of his accounts would close after decades at the bank. That came in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In a statement to ABC News, JPMorgan said the suit has “no merit” and they will fight it in court.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates
