Pressure on the Justice Department grew louder Monday after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would be introducing a resolution directing the Senate to “initiate legal action against the DOJ" for releasing only some of its records related to Jeffrey Epstein and a spokesperson for Bill Clinton called on the administration to release all of its material involving the former president.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News on Friday that he expected the department would release "several hundred thousand documents today.” But only 9,675 pages of documents have been released since then, according to an NBC News count.
“The law Congress passed is crystal clear: release the Epstein files in full so Americans can see the truth,” Schumer wrote Monday on X. “Instead, the Trump Department of Justice dumped redactions and withheld the evidence — that breaks the law."
Schumer will force consideration of the measure in January when the Senate reconvenes. The Senate returns from recess on Monday, Jan. 5.
The White House referred a request for comment to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond.
Files involving Epstein released Friday included numerous pictures of Clinton, who traveled on his jet in 2002 and 2003 on trips for the Clinton Foundation. A spokesman for Clinton, Angel Ureña, said Monday on social media that the way the files are being released “makes one thing clear: someone or something is being protected. We do not know whom, what or why.”
“We need no such protection,” Ureña added on X. “Accordingly, we call on President Trump to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to immediately release any remaining materials referring to, mentioning or containing a photograph of Bill Clinton.”
“Refusal to do so will confirm the widespread suspicion the Department of Justice’s actions to date are not about transparency, but about insinuation — using selective releases to imply wrongdoing about individuals who have already been repeatedly cleared by the very same Department of Justice, over many years,” he said.
Trump was asked Monday about Clinton's appearance in the photos.
"I don't like the pictures of Bill Clinton being shown. I don't like the pictures of other people being shown. I think it's a terrible thing," Trump said in his first on-air remarks about the Epstein files since the Justice Department began releasing them last week.
"I think Bill Clinton's a big boy; he can handle it," he added.
Trump had called on Bondi to investigate Clinton's involvement with the late sex offender. Clinton has denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in a story that was published last week that "the president was wrong" to suggest that the Epstein files incriminated Clinton.
Asked Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether Clinton is under investigation, Blanche said, "I will never talk about an ongoing criminal investigation, so I’m not going to answer that question."
Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — who co-wrote the bill that compelled the Justice Department to release its records on Epstein — said over the weekend they plan to take action in the House, as well. The Justice Department on Friday released only part of its investigative files on Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” Massie said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
The law, which Trump signed Nov. 19, gave the attorney general 30 days to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice” involving Epstein, “including all investigations, prosecutions, or custodial matters.”
The law allows limited exceptions, including redactions to protect the victims' identities or to avoid jeopardizing an active federal investigation.
In a statement Monday, a group of Epstein victims urged the lawmakers to intervene.
The "public received a fraction of the files, and what we received was riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation. At the same time, numerous victim identities were left unredacted, causing real and immediate harm," the statement said.
They said the Justice Department "violated the law" and urged "immediate congressional oversight, including hearings, formal demands for compliance, and legal action, to ensure the Department of Justice fulfills its legal obligations."
Blanche acknowledged Friday in an interview with Fox News that the Justice Department had not met the Dec. 19 deadline to make all the information public but said that was because it was still working to redact information to protect victims' identities, as the new law also requires.
"Redacting information very much trumps some deadline in the statute," he reiterated to NBC News on Sunday.
The Justice Department has said Epstein, who died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, preyed on over 1,200 women and girls.
The Justice Department has defended its rollout of the files, some of which have been heavily redacted, as well as its decision to remove over a dozen photographs it initially released — one of which included pictures of Trump. Trump and Epstein were friends for years, but the president has said they had a falling out. There's no evidence the president was involved in any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
That sparked criticism that the Justice Department was trying to cover for the president, which Blanche denied in his interview with "Meet the Press."
That decision "has nothing to do with President Trump," and it was made because "victims' rights groups" were concerned about other images that were captured in the photo, Blanche said. The photo was put back up on the Justice Department's Epstein files database later Sunday.
“The Southern District of New York flagged an image of President Trump for potential further action to protect victims. Out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Justice temporarily removed the image for further review,” the Justice Department said on X. “After the review, it was determined there is no evidence that any Epstein victims are depicted in the photograph, and it has been reposted without any alteration or redaction.”
In his remarks Monday, Trump said some of the published documents may be pictures of people who “innocently met Jeffrey Epstein many years ago.”
Trump repeated his argument that the Epstein files are a distraction from his administration’s accomplishments, saying Democrats were using the release as “a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has.”
He also reiterated that he has never been to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
“I never went there, by the way, but fortunately, it’s nice, but I never went there. But a lot of people did go there,” Trump said.
In the "Meet the Press" interview Sunday, Blanche initially sidestepped a question from moderator Kristen Welker about why Maxwell, who's serving 20 years on sex trafficking charges, was moved to a lower-security prison after he personally interviewed her this year.
The highly unusual sitdown came amid pressure on the Justice Department from some of the president's supporters for declaring in July that the Epstein matter was closed and that it would not be releasing any more information about the case.
Blanche at first said it was "a Bureau of Prisons security issue that I will not talk about" before he said, "Let me talk about the security issue."
"At the time that I met Ms. Maxwell, there was a tremendous amount of scrutiny and publicity towards her and the institution she was in, she was suffering numerous and numerous threats against her life. So the BOP is not only responsible for putting people in jail and making sure they stay in jail, but also for their safety and so she was moved," he said.
About the files as a whole, Blanche told Fox he expects the entirety of them to be online in two weeks. That would mean significantly quickening the pace on the disclosures — he told NBC News there are a "million or so documents" in total.
In a "fact sheet" it released Sunday, the Justice Department said it "has more than 200 lawyers working around the clock reviewing each individual file for release. This is an arduous process, as each document and photograph must be individually reviewed by DOJ and the Southern District of New York for potential redactions to protect victims or potential victims."
"The Department is required by law to redact identifying information about the victims, minors, or potential victims, as well as privileged material. NO redactions have been or will be made to protect famous individuals or politically exposed persons," it said.
