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The US Justice Department said it could take several more weeks to release documents related to late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that Congress had ordered to be published by last Friday.
The department said Wednesday it had uncovered “more than one million documents” that may be related to the case and would need time to review them.
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The DoJ’s partial and heavily redacted disclosures have come multiple times since late Friday, and have failed to silence critics who have accused the administration of blocking information about the Epstein case.
Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month, requiring all materials related to Epstein’s prosecution to be published by December 19.
“Due to the sheer volume of material, this process may take several more weeks,” the DoJ said on Wednesday. “The Department will continue to fully comply with federal law and President Trump’s direction to release the files.”
It did not provide any further details on when or how officials from the DoJ’s Southern District of New York and the FBI had disclosed the additional files, but said they had now been received by the federal Justice Department.
Earlier on Wednesday, a group of senators had called for an investigation into the DoJ’s compliance with its obligations. Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, along with eleven Democratic senators, wrote the letter to the DOJ’s acting inspector general.
“Given the Administration’s historical hostility toward releasing the files, the politicization of the Epstein case more broadly, and the failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a dispassionate assessment of compliance with statutory disclosure requirements is necessary,” the senators wrote.
Full transparency, he said, “is essential to identify those members of our society who enabled and participated in Epstein’s crimes”.
