JTFMax

Paper Mountains, Silent Answers

New York — The paper keeps coming. And coming. And coming.

Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice released another massive tranche of material tied to the long-running investigation into Jeffrey Epstein—a disclosure so large it almost feels architectural. More than three million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images were added to the public record in one sweep.

Standing at the podium, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche explained that the department has now produced roughly 3.5 million pages in accordance with the law, with the total universe of documents—duplicates included—reaching 5.2 million pages. Enough paperwork, one imagines, to wallpaper Manhattan twice and still have some left over for the subway.

The release stems from the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed after months of mounting public pressure and frustration. Its mandate is straightforward: open the files, protect victims, and let the public see what the government has been sitting on. The execution, however, is anything but simple.

To meet congressional deadlines—missed once already—the Justice Department enlisted hundreds of lawyers to comb through documents line by line. Their task: redact identifying details of abuse victims while pushing as much information as legally possible into daylight. Earlier releases before Christmas included tens of thousands of pages, many heavily redacted or already known. This drop, officials say, includes material previously withheld.

The files again reference familiar names. Flight logs from the 1990s show current U.S. President Donald Trump aboard Epstein’s private jet before the two fell out. Photographs of former President Bill Clinton appear as well. Neither man has been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case, and both have publicly stated they had no knowledge of his abuse of underage girls.

Additional releases include grand jury testimony from FBI agents describing interviews with girls and young women who said Epstein paid them for sexual acts—accounts that reinforce what has long been known, but rarely resolved.

Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. Years earlier, a controversial Florida plea deal allowed him to serve a short sentence for soliciting a minor, despite evidence suggesting far broader abuse. His associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 and is now serving a 20-year sentence. She continues to deny wrongdoing.

No other individuals have been charged. One accuser, Virginia Giuffre, alleged Epstein forced her into sexual encounters with powerful figures, including Britain’s Prince Andrew, who denied her claims but later settled a civil lawsuit. Giuffre died by suicide last year at 41.

And so the paradox remains: unprecedented transparency measured in terabytes, and yet a persistent sense that clarity is still missing. Millions of pages are now public. Answers, however, remain stubbornly scarce. The archive grows. The truth, frustratingly, still feels incomplete.