They want to know if more files need to be released and how they came up with the selection of the available documents.
By Catholics for Catholics
Irked by how the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files have been handled, a bipartisan group of senators authored a letter sent to the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday, calling for a probe into the Justice Department over the handling of the convicted sexual predator case documents.
The bipartisan letter accuses the Justice Department of noncompliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law overpoweringly approved by both chambers of Congress last year. The politicians shared worries that the department has still not released all of the files it is required to by the law, despite a December deadline, according to Newsmax.
Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the Justice Department may have not turned over all records mandated by law, and inadequately exposed identifying information about victims while hiding information about powerful people described as possible co-conspirators or material witnesses.
The senators asked the GAO in a letter to acting Comptroller General Price Williams Brown, to inspect how the department studied and wrote the files, how many people were assigned to the work, and what guidance the administration provided as officials moved to comply with the disclosure law.
“Contrary to Congress’s explicit directive to protect victims, these records included email addresses and nude photos in which the names and faces of publicly identified and non-public victims could be identified,” the lawmakers wrote.
“But when it came to information identifying powerful business and political figures who are alleged co-conspirators or material witnesses, the DOJ appears to have heavily redacted those records,” the letter stated, according to CNBC.
By contrast, the Justice Department countered on Jan. 30 that it had published more than three million additional pages, bringing total production to nearly 3.5 million pages.
Still, the department has encountered backlash from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress over whether that production was complete and properly redacted.
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