Some Redactions From Epstein Files Removed After Outcry
- - Some Redactions From Epstein Files Removed After Outcry
Nik PopliFebruary 11, 2026 at 1:46 AM
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Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, left, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, arrive at a Department of Justice office in Washington, D.C., to inspect the Epstein files on Feb. 9, 2026 Credit - Alex Wong—Getty Images
Members of Congress who on Monday were granted access to un-redacted Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein said they discovered evidence that at least six men had been concealed from public view without clear legal justification, renewing accusations that the Trump Administration had improperly shielded powerful figures from scrutiny.
By Monday evening, after lawmakers publicly raised those concerns, the Justice Department moved to un-redact more than a dozen additional names in several Epstein-related records, including a list of alleged associates that had previously been almost entirely obscured.
Two of the House lawmakers who reviewed the files—Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ro Khanna of California—said the redactions they initially encountered appeared to include one “high up” foreign government official and other prominent individuals whose names and photographs were hidden in the versions previously released to the public.
“There are six men, some of them with their photographs, that have been redacted, and there’s no explanation why those people were redacted,” Massie said earlier Monday after spending roughly two hours reviewing the documents inside a secure reading room at a Department of Justice satellite office. He added that at least one of the six men was a U.S. citizen and at least one was foreign, but declined at the time to reveal their identities. “I probably should do that from the floor or in a committee hearing,” Massie said.
That evening, following public exchanges between Massie and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on social media, the Justice Department un-redacted 16 additional names from an unclassified list of 20 individuals that had previously shown only Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Two victim names on the list remain redacted.
On Tuesday, Khanna read aloud some of the unredacted names on the House floor, and Massie highlighted them on social media.
Blanche said in a social media post that the department had “just un-redacted all non-victim names” from the document and insisted that the Justice Department was “hiding nothing.” He said redactions were required under the law to protect victims’ personal information and certain identifying details. Blanche did not explain why the redactions of the 16 additional people on the document were only removed after members of Congress publicly complained about it.
The Justice Department also removed a redaction from a 2019 FBI document flagged by Massie that listed Les Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, as a possible “co-conspirator.” Blanche defended the earlier redaction of Wexner’s name, noting that the businessman’s “name already appears in the files thousands of times. DOJ is hiding nothing.”
Read more: How the Epstein Files Broke Britain
The removal of the redactions came on the first day that members of Congress were permitted to examine un-redacted versions of roughly three million Epstein-related files that the Justice Department has already made public in heavily redacted form. The review follows months of criticism from lawmakers, survivors and advocates who argued that the Trump Administration had failed to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in November. The statute requires the Justice Department to release all unclassified records related to Epstein and his associates and bars redactions made on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity.
Epstein, a wealthy financier with extensive political and social ties, was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking of minors and died in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide.
Yet when the DOJ began releasing documents in recent weeks, many were so heavily redacted that they offered little new information, prompting bipartisan frustration.
“These six are just what we found in two hours of a review of the files,” Khanna said. “The broader issue is why so many of the files they’re getting are redacted in the first place.”
“What Americans want to know,” he added, “is who are the rich and powerful people who went to this island? Did they rape underage girls? Did they know that underage girls were being paraded around?”
Under rules set by the Justice Department, lawmakers are allowed to review the files on computers inside a secure Justice Department satellite office reading room, though they must give 24 hours’ notice, cannot bring in electronic devices, and may only take handwritten notes.
While the Justice Department has said it possesses more than six million Epstein-related documents, lawmakers are currently being given access only to the three million that were released publicly after Congress passed the transparency act. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the department appeared to have violated the law by concealing names and passages that did not meet the statute’s narrow standards for redaction.
Among the material Raskin said he encountered was a redacted passage summarizing comments attributed to President Trump by Epstein’s lawyers that contradicted Trump’s public claims that he had expelled Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason,” Raskin said.
“There’s no way you run a billion-dollar international child sex trafficking ring with just two people committing crimes, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” Raskin added. “So we need to figure out what other conspiracies were involved, what other co-conspirators were involved.”
The Justice Department has not released a formal explanation for the broader pattern of redactions, beyond saying that some material was withheld due to privileges such as attorney-client communications. Massie and Khanna argue those categories are not permitted under the statute.
“I thought we were supposed to see the un-redacted versions,” Khanna said Monday evening, adding that the documents seemed to have arrived at the Justice Department already redacted from the FBI and grand jury materials that, under the law, are supposed to be disclosed in full.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and lawmakers from both parties have said they want answers about how the department handled the files. With only a fraction of the records reviewed so far, Raskin cautioned that the process would be slow and painstaking.
“Of the 3.5 million documents that have been released, I probably had the opportunity to review maybe 30 or 40 of them,” he said. “This is going to be an extremely time consuming and painstaking process… There is no way before Attorney General Bondi arrives on Wednesday that we're going to have the opportunity to go through every redaction in order to ask thorough questions."
The renewed congressional focus follows months of backlash to the Trump Administration’s handling of the case. In July, the FBI and Justice Department issued a memo saying they had completed an exhaustive review and did not expect further charges, prompting outrage from victims and their advocates.
Khanna and Massie said Monday’s findings reinforced their belief that the fight over the Epstein files is far from over. “They have been protecting some of these men,” Khanna said. “Maybe it was not intentional, but the law is very clear. They need to comply with the law.”
Write to Nik Popli at [email protected].
Source: “AOL Breaking”
