Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Two members of the House of Representatives asked a federal judge in New York on Thursday to appoint a so-called special master to ensure that all materials related to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are released by the Department of Justice as required by the law they promoted.
Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., in their request for that independent monitor, blasted the DOJ for failing to meet a Dec. 19 deadline to release all of the Epstein files.
“The conduct by the DOJ is not only a flagrant violation of the mandatory disclosure obligations under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but as this Court has recognized in its previous rulings, the behavior by the DOJ has caused serious trauma to survivors,” Massie and Khanna wrote to Manhattan Federal Court Judge Paul Engelmayer in a letter obtained by CNBC. The letter was first reported by MS Now.
“As leads of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, we have urgent and grave concerns about DOJ’s failure to comply with the Act, as well as the Department’s violations of this Court’s order,” the letter said.
The DOJ, in a court filing earlier this week, said that it still needs to review more than 2 million documents related to Epstein.
To date, the DOJ has publicly released just a tiny fraction of that: fewer than 13,000 documents, that filing said.
“The Department of Justice is openly defying the law by refusing to release the full Epstein files. Millions of files are being kept from the public,” Khanna said in a statement to CNBC.
“The DOJ has failed to make the necessary redactions to protect survivors while removing records after publication without any explanation,” Khanna said.
“That is why we are requesting the appointment of a Special Master to oversee the release of the files and ensure that the DOJ is following the law,” he said.
Massie and Khanna, in their letter to Engelmayer, also noted that the DOJ has so far failed to provide the House and Senate Judiciary Committees with a report on redactions that the department made to documents and on any materials that are withheld from release.
“To date, no such report has been provided. Without it, there is no authoritative accounting of what records exist, what has been withheld, or why, making effective oversight and judicial review far more difficult,” Massie and Khanna wrote, according to MS Now.
“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act.”
Engelmayer oversees the criminal case that led to the conviction of Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, on charges of procuring underage girls for him to sexually abuse.
CNBC has requested comment from the DOJ about the letter.
Epstein, 66, killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019, weeks after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
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