The audit will focus on the Justice Department’s ‘processes for identifying, redacting, and releasing records in its possession as required by the Act.’
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) internal watchdog said it will review the department’s compliance with a law that required the DOJ to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
In a statement issued on April 23, acting DOJ Inspector General William Blier’s office said it would initiate an audit of the department’s overall compliance with the law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The review’s “preliminary objective is to evaluate the DOJ’s processes for identifying, redacting, and releasing records in its possession as required by the Act,” the office said in a statement.
Namely, the inspector general would evaluate the department’s “identification, collection, and production of responsive material” related to Epstein or Maxwell, agency guidance and processes on “redacting and withholding material consistent with the requirements enumerated in the Act,” and the DOJ’s processes after publication of that material, the statement added.
When its work is finished, the inspector general’s office will release a report with the results of the audit, it said, without providing a timetable.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the former deputy attorney general who was named this month to his position after then-Attorney General Pam Bondi left the Trump administration, was involved in the DOJ’s release of Epstein-related files. Blanche has consistently defended the department’s work in releasing the files, arguing that DOJ personnel needed to take the requisite amount of time to issue redactions and protect victims.
Earlier this month, Blanche responded to a question from Fox News about whether the DOJ released all the files. He said in his first interview as acting attorney general that the department has “released everything.”
“We are not sitting on a single piece of paper, nothing that should be released,“ he said, adding, ”If we didn’t release it, it’s because it was not responsive to the law.”
Several House lawmakers in February accused the department of improperly redacting Epstein-related files before they were published.
