The Department of Justice on Sunday re-released more than 100 pages of previously heavily redacted grand jury materials from a 2021 case concerning Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted co-conspirator of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Documents and photos will continue to be reviewed consistent with the law and with an abundance of caution for victims and their families,” the DOJ said in a post to X.
The reversal came the same day Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, the lawmakers who brought the original discharge petition to force the documents’ release, announced they would seek inherent contempt charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi following Friday’s incomplete release of the Justice Department’s files related to Epstein.
“Massie & I are different. We do not just do memes or speeches,” Khanna wrote in a post to X after the DOJ toned down some of its redactions. “We take action to fight a corrupt system.”
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The two lawmakers first signaled they would be looking into impeachment charges after the DOJ on Friday failed to release the full collection of evidence it has on Epstein.
“Congress is talking about possible impeachment,” Khanna told CNN. “They’re talking about inherent contempt for the attorney general or deputy attorney general.”
Here is the document now with minimal redactions. Documents and photos will continue to be reviewed consistent with the law and with an abundance of caution for victims and their families.
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) December 21, 2025
🔗: https://t.co/zQaKenMLSy https://t.co/r4HiTIplnk
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that DOJ officials are ready to take on impeachment proceedings or other retribution from Congress over the department’s incremental release of files related to Epstein.
Blanche on Sunday defended his department’s release of the files, arguing “there is well-settled law in a case like this that redacting information very much trumps some deadline in the statute.”
When asked by NBC News’ Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” whether he was worried about Massie and Khanna’s impeachment threats, Blanche replied: “Not even a little bit.”
“We are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing,” Blanche replied.
The deadline for the DOJ to release its documents passed Friday, with the release of a first batch of about 3,000 photographs and other related documents. Many of the photographs featured Epstein alongside former President Bill Clinton and various celebrities.
A large percent of the documents released Friday were already publicly available, and notably missing were FBI interviews with victims and internal DOJ memos on charging decisions. A CBS News analysis also found that at least 550 pages of the pages were fully redacted.
Khanna, in a separate Sunday interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” seemed to back off his impeachment threats, suggesting that the “most expeditious way to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi.”
“That doesn’t require going through the courts,” Khanna said. “I believe we will get bipartisan support in holding her accountable and a committee of Congress should determine whether these redactions are justified or not.”
Democrats overwhelmingly criticized the release on Friday.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer latched onto the grand jury materials as well, saying at the time: “Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law.”
“For example, all 119 pages of one document were completely blacked out. We need answers as to why,” he continued.
In addition to making the overriding decision to release the Epstein files in incremental batches, more than a dozen images published within Friday’s first batch have since disappeared.
One of the images that has since been taken down features an overflowing desk drawer, with photographs of Trump and various women at the top. No faces were redacted in the original post.
“You can see in that photo there are photographs of women. We learned after releasing that photograph that there were concerns about those women,” Blanche said Sunday. “It has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”
Blanche said the DOJ is further investigating the photograph after a victims’ rights group expressed “concern.”
Asked if the women photographed with Trump are considered to be victims, Blanche said “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Blanche said the picture will be re-released, with facial redaction of any women found to be victims of Epstein.
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