A federal judge is about to see something the rest of the world hasn’t: some of the DOJ’s unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files.
On July 25, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivanordered the Justice Departmentto hand over 10 disputed records, in full, with no black boxes, for his private review.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—whoseconfirmationto the permanent role has been complicated in no small part by Epstein survivors who have refused to be silent about the botched and incomplete release of the Epstein files earlier this year—has until July 30 at 3 p.m. to comply with the court’s order.
This is the first time a judge has reviewed the DOJ’s release of the files—and it isn’t happening by accident.
As many survivors of sexual assault know, when it comes to the legal system, almost nothing happens without a fight. This fight was brought by Katie Phang.
Phang, an attorney and former MSNBC anchor, has become one of the most tenacious independent journalists covering the Epstein files.
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When the Trump administration uploaded the first set of the Epstein files under theEpstein Files Transparency Actin December 2025, survivors and their advocates immediately flaggedserious problems. Despite the legislation’s very limited exceptions outlining what information could lawfully be blacked out or redacted, theDOJ exposed the names and identifying information of many victims, endangering them, while keeping many other names hidden behind black boxes—names that many survivors believe belong not to Epstien’s victims, but to the people around Epstein: his associates, facilitators, potential co-conspirators and fellow perpetrators.
Phang toldMs. she remains especially disturbed by this aspect of the release. “Either it was a grossly negligent kind of attempt to protect the victims and survivors who were explicitly supposed to be done by way of this law, or an intentional un-redaction to coerce them to be in a place of public embarrassment, fear and shame, which they should never be in, to deter literally hundreds if not more, maybe even thousands, of victims and survivors from coming forward.”
The DOJ also completely held back what survivors and advocacy organizations say are approximately3 million more files, including hundreds of thousands of foreign-language documents. The DOJ also failed to provide a public log explaining the reasons for each of their redactions or withholdings as required.
Phang explained her growing frustration as the documents continued to be released: “I noticed that these redactions were protecting people that I wanted to investigate more.”
She said she and other independent journalists noticed how many inconsistencies, skipped numbers and weird patterns appeared in relation to the redactions.
After this botched release, the man former Attorney GeneralPam Bondi told Congresswas “in charge” of the Epstein filesdeclaredthe matter closed, claiming they “should not be part of anything going forward.”
While many leaders inside Washington just wrung their hands, Phang decided to act.
