Support Assigning Special Master for Epstein Files Transparency Act Compliance

Today I take pen in hand to write and urge you to support the request by Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie for judicial appointment of a special master or independent monitor to ensure Department of Justice compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The law was passed. The DOJ has missed key deadlines and provided only heavily redacted materials, violating the law and court orders. The DOJ's conduct raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability. Despite claiming to review over a million additional documents, the department has produced only approximately 12,285 documents totaling 125,575 pages, with more than 2 million documents still pending review. Some unconfirmed reports suggest the DOJ may be reviewing more than 5 million pages. Khanna and Massie argue these self-reported figures are internally inconsistent with prior representations, creating reasonable suspicion that the DOJ has overstated the scope of materials to portray compliance as unmanageable and delay disclosure. The DOJ has also failed to comply with Section 3 of the act, which requires the attorney general to submit a report within 15 days of the deadline identifying categories of records released and withheld, summarizing all redactions and their legal bases. No such report has been provided. This failure has caused serious trauma to survivors who deserve transparency and justice. Representatives Khanna and Massie offered for six months to meet with the Justice Department to facilitate proper document release. Their intervention with the Southern District of New York requesting judicial oversight represents a necessary step when an agency cannot be trusted with mandatory disclosures. Judge Paul Engelmayer, who oversees the Ghislaine Maxwell case, has authority to appoint independent oversight. I urge you to publicly support this request for a special master and hold the DOJ accountable to the law-now and after they are out of office. Survivors and the public deserve the transparency Congress mandated. Thank you for your attention to this matter of obeying the law.