Washington: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Monday that it had withdrawn certain documents related to late financier Jeffrey Epstein, after victims complained that sensitive information had been released due to redaction failures.
According to Namibia Press Agency, the department stated in a letter filed to federal judges that it had removed "several thousand documents and media" from its website. These documents "may have inadvertently included victim-identifying information due to various factors, including technical or human error."
The incident followed urgent requests from lawyers representing Epstein's victims, who asked the judges to order the DOJ site to be taken down. The lawyers argued that the release of sensitive personal information had severely impacted the lives of nearly 100 individual survivors.
On Friday, the DOJ released a substantial batch of Epstein-related files, comprising more than 3 million pages, over 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images. This release came more than a month after a congressional deadline mandating the public disclosure of all files related to the Epstein case.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced at a press conference that the department had produced approximately 3.5 million pages in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Congress had passed the bill on Nov. 18, 2025, requiring the DOJ to make the files public by Dec. 19.
Starting on Dec. 19, the department began releasing the documents in batches. However, significant portions of these documents were heavily redacted, and some newly released photos were later removed from the DOJ's website.
The initial batch of documents included numerous references to former Democratic President Bill Clinton, leading to accusations of selective disclosure by the DOJ. Some major U.S. media outlets speculated that this was an attempt to protect prominent figures associated with President Donald Trump's Republican camp.
On Dec. 23, 2025, the department released another batch of nearly 30,000 pages of Epstein-related documents, many of which involved Trump. Subsequently, the department claimed that some content within the files was "untrue."