Epstein victims ask Congress to ensure Justice Department releases all files

Jess Michaels, who has said that Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, said she was so upset over how the Justice Department was releasing its investigative files on the disgraced financier that she called her lawyer to draft a letter.

“I was so angry, and she took my words and put them into better context and took out all the swear words,” Michaels said. “The thing I am really frustrated with is that DOJ broke the law.”

The letter, signed by more than a dozen women who have said they were victims of Epstein and released on Monday, called on Congress to hold hearings to ensure that the Justice Department is fully complying with the terms of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The statement also notes that the women, who call themselves “Survivor Sisters,” are frustrated that the Justice Department has largely failed to meet with them or discuss their concerns.

The Justice Department has not responded to an email sent Monday requesting comment.

The law, which President Donald Trump initially opposed but signed in November, requires the Justice Department to make public all the information it had gathered on Epstein save for limited redactions to protect the privacy of hundreds of victims.

One goal is to determine whether authorities had fully looked into whether any of the scores of wealthy and famous men once associated with Epstein had participated in the sexual abuse of teenage girls and young women.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s public release of files. He said hundreds of agency lawyers were scouring “about a million or so pages of documents” and redacting victims’ names. Blanche said that the department anticipated posting more documents over the next few weeks.

Blanche also rejected criticism that the Justice Department was moving slowly to protect Trump, a onetime friend of Epstein’s, or anyone else who had associated with Epstein.

Epstein died by suicide while being held in a federal jail in August 2019, roughly a month after he was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges. The law mandating the documents’ release covers the 2019 investigation into Epstein; the investigation that led to the 2021 conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner, on related sex-trafficking charges; and a 2007 federal investigation that culminated in Epstein pleading guilty in Florida to a single state charge of soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl.

Over the weekend, some members of Congress and several victims, including Michaels, criticized the Justice Department after it released hundreds of pages of documents that were heavily redacted. They said that the government failed to produce any emails from Epstein, just a handful of his financial records and only a few statements that victims said they had given to federal authorities.

The Justice Department also has not released internal memorandums by federal prosecutors that might shed light on its charging decisions. Prosecutors commonly compile memorandums before filing an indictment or declining to prosecute.

The federal investigations mainly focused on allegations of sexual abuse of girls ages 14 to 18, as opposed to women into their early 20s who claimed to also have been abused by Epstein.

Michaels, who has said Epstein sexually assaulted her in 1991 when she was 22 and training to be a dancer, said she had yet to find in the released files the statement she gave an FBI agent in 2021.

Jennifer Freeman, the lawyer for Michaels and several other women who signed the statement, said she did not expect the Justice Department to officially respond. She said her clients were more focused on getting results from federal prosecutors.

Freeman said that victims might be dissatisfied with what they saw in the documents ultimately released by the Justice Department.

“They weren’t issuing subpoenas of other men. I don’t think they really saw this as terribly serious matter,” Freeman said.

Freeman also represents Maria Farmer, another of Epstein’s early victims, who this year sued the federal government for failing to act on a complaint she filed with the FBI in 1996, charging Epstein with sexual abuse and child pornography. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., claimed that Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of girls and young women could have been prevented if the FBI had acted on her complaint.

Farmer was among the women who signed the statement made Monday.

Among the tens of thousands of pages released by the Justice Department over the weekend was a copy of a related 1996 complaint by Farmer that said Epstein may have engaged in “child pornography.”