{"id":442933,"date":"2026-02-01T14:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442933\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T14:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:28:10","slug":"handling-of-epstein-files-is-outrageous-say-attorneys-of-his-sex-trafficking-survivors-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442933\/","title":{"rendered":"Handling of Epstein files is \u2018outrageous\u2019, say attorneys of his sex trafficking survivors | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>\u2019s sex trafficking operation have reacted to the voluminous \u2013 and possibly last \u2013 tranche of government-held investigative documents with calls for further accountability for the scheme\u2019s alleged clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is without question that a significant piece of Epstein and [his convicted associate Ghislaine] Maxwell\u2019s vast sex trafficking operation was to provide young women and girls to other wealthy and powerful individuals,\u201d said Sigrid McCawley, a partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, a firm representing survivors of the scheme.<\/p>\n

That practice, McCawley said, gave Epstein and Maxwell<\/a> \u201ccontrol and power over individuals who were implicated in the sex trafficking\u201d.<\/p>\n

McCawley added: \u201cThose who find themselves entangled in the mire of newly released information, no doubt, will play the deny and distance card, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that this is exactly how the sex trafficking operation worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments came after the Trump administration\u2019s justice department on Friday released about 3m files<\/a> related to the late financier and convicted sex offender. Some files that were immediately appraised included references to and correspondence with prominent individuals, including multibillionaire businessperson Elon Musk<\/a> and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick<\/a> \u2013 who were at times associated with Epstein but have not been accused of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said several categories of pages were withheld from release, including personally identifying information of the victims, victims\u2019 medical files, images depicting child sexual abuse and pages related to ongoing cases.<\/p>\n

Victims\u2019 attorney Brad Edwards, however, told ABC News that there had been errors in the releases that identified victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting constant calls from victims because their names \u2013 despite them never coming forward, being completely unknown to the public \u2013 have all just been released for public consumption,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cIt\u2019s literally thousands of mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victims attorney Jennifer Freeman said the justice department\u2019s \u201chandling of the Epstein files has been a mess from the start, filled with \u2026 ham-fisted redactions, while exposing the identities of survivors\u201d.<\/p>\n

Freeman also alluded to how Friday\u2019s release missed a congressionally set deadline that passed in December. She said that the victim-survivors and their advocates \u201cwon\u2019t allow the federal government to simply dump a couple million documents and wash their hands of one of the largest law enforcement failures in US history\u201d. She also accused the justice department of \u201chiding the names of perpetrators while exposing survivors\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another attorney, Spencer Kuvin, cited victim\u2019s testimony that Epstein provided girls to other famous and notable people \u2013 \u201cusually\u201d done so as favors with the hope that he would get something in return from these people. \u201cThe recent documents only confirm what the victims have been saying all along,\u201d Kuvin said.<\/p>\n

Separately, a group of 20 Epstein survivors said the document dump served to shield powerful figures but exposed those who had been harmed.<\/p>\n

The files, they said, were being sold as transparency \u2013 but what they actually did was expose survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs survivors, we should never be the ones named, scrutinized, and re-traumatized while Epstein\u2019s enablers continue to benefit from secrecy,\u201d the statement said. \u201cOnce again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

That position awkwardly aligns with that of Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>, who said in court papers seeking to overturn her late 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges that a group of 25 alleged accomplices of Epstein made \u201csecret settlements\u201d with their accusers.<\/p>\n

Those papers say \u201cnone of these men have been prosecuted and none has been revealed to\u201d Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022. \u201cShe would have called them as witnesses had she known,\u201d the papers added.<\/p>\n

In the political dimension, bipartisan sponsors of the transparency law that forced the release of the documents sent a formal letter to Blanche demanding that they view the un-redacted files to ensure Congress is fulfilling its oversight duties.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress cannot properly assess the department\u2019s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record,\u201d wrote California Democrat Ro Khanna and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie of the US House.<\/p>\n

Democratic US senator Chuck Schumer, his chamber\u2019s minority leader, also accused attorney general Pam Bondi of failing to adhere to the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery member of this body voted that all the Epstein files should be released,\u201d Schumer said on the Senate floor on Friday. \u201cWe are not satisfied that the law is being complied with. We believe it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Bronx US House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on Twitter\/X<\/a>, \u201cEven with everything in this Epstein drop, remember: this is a minority of the files. This is STILL just what they were *willing* to release \u2013 in violation of the law, which requires release of all files.<\/p>\n

\u201cPam Bondi\u2019s [justice] department is still hiding most of them. We need them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A justice department statement to ABC News said that it had \u201ccoordinated closely with victims and their lawyers to ensure that the production of documents includes necessary redactions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made,\u201d the justice department added. \u201cSo, the Department has established an email inbox (EFTA@usdoj.gov)<\/a> for victims to reach us directly to correct redaction concerns when appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein died in federal custody in 2019.<\/p>\n

Before releasing the files on Friday, Blanche said: \u201cI think there\u2019s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing I can do about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s sex trafficking operation have reacted to the voluminous \u2013 and possibly last \u2013 tranche…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-442933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}