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By Hugh Cameron
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Members of Congress have been granted uncensored access to a selection of the Justice Department’s files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, and the lawmakers say these have shed additional light on the late sex offender as well as the individuals in his orbit.
The review, conducted under tight restrictions at a DOJ satellite office in Washington, D.C., concerns the roughly 3 million files the Department has publicly released since late 2025.
And this follows months of criticism from survivors and lawmakers over the Department’s handling of the case and what they see as its reluctance to comply fully with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in November.
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The Justice Department pointed Newsweek to several X posts from Todd Blanche, in which the Deputy Attorney General said that victims’ names and “personally identifiable information" of certain other individuals had been redacted, but stressed that the Department remains “committed to transparency.”
‘Prominent’ Individuals Protected by Redactions
Representatives Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, who led the congressional push to release the files, were among those given access to the unredacted documents. At a press conference on Monday, the pair told reporters that their time-limited review had already revealed a number of individuals who were "likely incriminated" in Epstein’s criminal activities, but whose identities had been concealed by the DOJ redactions.
“There are six men. We went in there for two hours. There’s millions of files, right? And in a couple of hours, we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented,” Massie said.
The two lawmakers did not name the individuals, though they said at least one is a U.S. citizen and one a foreigner.
“One is pretty high up in a foreign government,” said Massie, before Khanna added that another is “a pretty prominent individual.”
Massie said he would prefer to allow the Justice Department to “correct their mistakes” rather than reveal the names publicly on the House floor, but later on social media described one as “a well known retired CEO," confirmed by the DOJ to be former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, and said another was a “sultan.”
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Sultan Sent Torture Video to Epstein
In his post referencing the “sultan,” Massie posted an image of a 2009 email apparently sent by Epstein to a redacted address, which read: “Where are you? Are you ok, I loved the torture video.”
Deputy Attorney General Blanche confirmed that the individual was indeed a sultan and referenced file EFTA00666117, a document released by the Justice Department identifying him as Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, a businessman from the United Arab Emirates whose association with Epstein has long been known.
Sulayem is currently chairman and CEO of DP World, a major global logistics firm based in the UAE. Newsweek has reached out to DP World's media office via email for comment.
“Until tonight no one knew who sent the torture video to Epstein. I went to DOJ, unredacted the email, and reverse searched the email to discover it was a Sultans,” Massie wrote on X. “Our law requires VICTIM’s information to be redacted, not information of men who sent Epstein torture porn!”
Exact details of the footage are not yet known.
Victims as Young as 9
Representative Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, was also given access to unredacted copies of the files on Monday. The Maryland Democrat said he was only able to view “maybe 30 or 40," and, like Massie and Khanna, complained of redactions for “mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons.”
But in those he was able to view, Raskin said he had seen "scandalous" new details regarding the extent of Epstein’s criminality.
“You read through these files, and you read about 15-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, 10-year-old girls,” Raskin told reporters on Monday. “I saw a mention of a 9-year-old girl today. I mean, this is just preposterous and scandalous.”
“I don't want to get into any particular case right now, but I hope the whole country is focusing on the absolute gravity of the crisis that we're in,” he added.
Files Allegedly Contradict Trump’s Account of Epstein Relationship
Raskin said he had also viewed an email, sent by Epstein to his convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, detailing a conversation between his and Trump’s lawyers around the time of the 2009 investigation into Epstein in Florida.
This email, Raskin said, appeared to contradict the president’s long-standing assertion that he had cut off relations and barred Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago resort in the mid-2000s.
“Epstein's lawyers synopsized and quoted Trump as saying that Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of his club at Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mara Lago and he had never been asked to leave,” Raskin told reporters. “And that was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason.”
The White House, in response, directed Newsweek to the same series of X posts from Blanche referenced by the Justice Department.
What Happens Next
Lawmakers are currently able to access only three million of the roughly six million Epstein-related documents in the Department of Justice’s possession—unredacted copies of those already made public—and the process remains heavily restricted.
Members of Congress can review the files in person on computers at a designated DOJ facility in Washington, though they must give the Justice Department 24 hours’ notice, are barred from bringing in electronic devices and are only permitted to take handwritten notes.
Raskin said that he and others hope to view the unredacted files in full, but said that this would likely prove “an extremely time consuming and painstaking process,” while complaining of the limited number of computers at the satellite office.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is due to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and Raskin said this would give him and other lawmakers the chance to “go through every redaction in order to ask thorough questions.”
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