ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is asking the Inspector General to investigate whether the Justice Department complied with federal law when releasing heavily redacted documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Justice Department missed its December 19 deadline to fully release the Epstein files after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act by a nearly unanimous vote in November. The Department of Justice has released tens of thousands of documents, which are heavily redacted.
The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI have informed the Department of Justice that they have uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. The DOJ has received these documents from SDNY and the FBI to review…
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) December 24, 2025
On Christmas Eve, the department posted on social media it had discovered over a million more documents, which could take weeks to fully release. That same day, Murkowski became one of 12 lawmakers — the only Republican in the group — who signed their names on a letter to the DOJ demanding the release of all documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The bipartisan group was led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
“I’m not satisfied,” Murkowski said in an interview on Alaska News Source’s Political Pipeline podcast recorded before the letter was sent. “Look at the pages and pages that are completely black, completely black.”
Because of the redactions, Murkowski said the Justice Department failed to follow the law, which required all files to be released within 30 days in an accessible format.
The senator added she’s working with Senate colleagues to ask acting Inspector General Don Berthiaume to review what has been released and determine if it complied with the law.
Murkowski didn’t stop at criticisms over just the Epstein files, though, going on to say the issue represents a larger problem of the current administration failing to follow federal law.
“This is a problem when you have the administration that knows what the law is, the law has been clearly outlined, and they fail to follow it,” she said.
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