type: timeline_event
Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a six-page letter on February 14, 2026 to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees asserting that the Department of Justice had released all records in its possession relating to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, subject only to limited redactions permitted by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The letter was co-signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and included a list of approximately 340 names purportedly appearing in the released files, presented as a demonstration of the department's transparency.
The letter claimed that no records were withheld or redacted "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary." DOJ justified remaining redactions on three grounds: ongoing investigations, privileged communications, and victim privacy protections. The 340-name list mixed individuals with direct ties to Epstein alongside people mentioned only peripherally, prompting immediate criticism from lawmakers that it was designed to obscure rather than clarify who bore actual culpability.
Rep. Rohit Khanna accused Bondi of "purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email." Democratic lawmakers noted that by releasing a list of 340 names without context, DOJ effectively created cover for Epstein's associates by diluting the signal with noise. The letter arrived just three days after the congressional surveillance scandal and was widely interpreted as a damage-control effort rather than a good-faith accounting.
The claim that all files had been released was directly contradicted within ten days by an NPR investigation revealing that dozens of pages of FBI interview records related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump had been quietly removed or withheld from the public database, exposing Bondi's assurances as false or deliberately misleading.