{"id":107451,"date":"2026-01-21T17:49:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/107451\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T17:49:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:49:26","slug":"manhattan-judge-rejects-house-lawmakers-bid-for-independent-monitor-to-run-epstein-files-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/107451\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan judge rejects House lawmakers’ bid for independent monitor to run Epstein files release"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan federal judge denied an effort by two House <\/a>lawmakers Wednesday to appoint a neutral monitor to oversee the release of the Justice Department\u2019s investigative files on late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein \u2014 despite calling their attempt \u201cimportant\u201d and \u201ctimely.\u201d<\/p>\n

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer found that Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) did not have legal standing to make their request after the DOJ admitted in December it had only released 1% of all potential documents<\/a>\u00a0related to the Epstein case.<\/p>\n

\"JeffreyThe Justice Department says it has only released 1 percent of records related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. DOJ<\/p>\n

\u201cThis court lacks authority to grant the representatives\u2019 request for relief,\u201d wrote Engelmayer, who oversaw the 2021 trial <\/a>of Epstein\u2019s accomplice and former lover Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/p>\n

But the judge added that \u201cthe questions raised by the representatives and the victims are undeniably important and timely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey raise legitimate concerns about whether DOJ is faithfully complying with federal law,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Massie and Khanna, the co-authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA)<\/a>, had asked Engelmayer to appoint a so-called \u201cspecial master\u201d to regularly report to the judge about the pace of the document release \u2014 and who would have power to demand testimony from DOJ officials overseeing the effort.<\/p>\n

\"PlasticThe two pols had urged the court to appoint a neutral monitor to ensure that the DOJ followed the transparency law. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

The Justice Department has released 12,285 documents, comprising around 125,575 pages of investigative material, on its\u00a0Epstein Library\u00a0<\/a>webpage since the act took effect on Dec. 19.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors have acknowledged in court filings that there are \u201cmillions\u201d of pages yet to be reviewed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Engelmayer noted in his ruling that Massie and Khanna could file a separate lawsuit seeking the appointment of a neutral party to oversee the Epstein files release rather than piggybacking on the criminal case against Maxwell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Representatives are also, of course, at liberty to pursue oversight of DOJ via the tools available to Congress,\u201d the judge pointedly concluded his seven-page ruling.<\/p>\n

Massie and Khanna did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Manhattan federal judge denied an effort by two House lawmakers Wednesday to appoint a neutral monitor to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7115,6769,1082,75,277,84,83,57,9,24,63,87,7316,58],"class_list":["post-107451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-ghislaine-maxwell","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-justice-department","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-federal-court","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}