US Justice Department’s watchdog reviewing compliance over Epstein files release

The US Department of Justice’s internal watchdog said that it is reviewing the department’s compliance with the law mandating the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The inspector general’s review office will focus on how the department collected, reviewed and redacted materials in preparation for release and its process for addressing privacy concerns that arose after the files were made public.

The audit will focus on one of the more politically sensitive chapters of the Trump administration’s Justice Department, when officials bowed to public pressure and to a law from Congress to release millions of pages of records that the executive branch had initially said would not be disclosed.

The material was made public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the government to open its files on the late financier as well as his confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.

It marks the first significant effort by the watchdog — since President Donald Trump took office for a second time — to scrutinise the actions of a department that has been riven by tumult, including mass firings of employees and allegations of politicisation of investigations.

The Epstein saga has shadowed the department for more than a year. The FBI and Justice Department once said in an unsigned statement that they would not release additional records from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation, but they reversed course after the legislation was passed by Congress and signed by Mr Trump.

The department’s subsequent release of records generated complaints from victims, who said sloppy redactions had left their identities exposed, and to criticism that information that could have been damaging to Mr Trump was withheld from disclosure.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.