Federal Courts and DOJ Oversight

In a court letter signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy AG Todd Blanche and SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, DOJ said "hundreds" of employees are manually reviewing millions of pages, audio and video to redact victim‑identifying information and expects to publish "substantially all" Epstein‑related records "in the near term" but would not give a concrete completion date, even though it missed the Epstein Files Transparency Act’s Dec. 19 deadline. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer also denied Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie’s bid to intervene in the closed Ghislaine Maxwell case to appoint a monitor — saying they lack standing and must pursue a separate lawsuit or congressional oversight — while DOJ has so far released about 12,285 documents (125,575 pages) out of more than 2 million potentially responsive records (less than 1%).

Lindsey Halligan, a Trump‑appointed lawyer, has left her interim post in the Eastern District of Virginia after Judge Cameron McGowan Currie found her appointment unlawful, tossed indictments of James Comey and New York AG Letitia James, and Judge David Novak barred her from using the “U.S. Attorney” title and ordered her to explain its continued use. DOJ leaders including Attorney General Pam Bondi have contested the judges’ orders and are appealing while attempting to revive the prosecutions (amid internal turmoil that included the firing of Halligan’s top deputy, Robert McBride), and Chief Judge M. Hannah Lauck has authorized a vacancy announcement to fill the office.