The U.S. Department of Justice recently surprised the public by saying it might need extra time to release all the records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein even after missing a congressionally mandated deadline. What was expected to be a one-time disclosure by December 19 has now stretched into weeks of additional work, and the Justice Department says this is due to newly identified documents it hadn’t previously accounted for. What makes this delay notable isn’t just missing the deadline, but the reason given: discovering more than a million document pages potentially connected to the case at the last minute. That revelation has stirred both political criticism and renewed public attention, raising questions about transparency, process, and how the files were managed over the past year. Jeffrey Epstein Files: Why the DOJ Says More Time Is NeededThe heart of the latest development is a Justice Department announcement posted on social media that it had been informed by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan that more than a million documents possibly relevant to Epstein’s crimes had been found. This disclosure came after the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act had already passed. That law, passed by Congress and signed recently, required nearly all government files linked to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell to be published publicly. But the department now says it cannot release everything immediately because it must first sort through this massive trove of material, redact personal information to protect victims, and ensure legal compliance. The Justice Department claims its lawyers are working “around the clock” to review these documents and remove sensitive details before they go public. Given the scale millions of pages that task will take “a few more weeks,” according to officials. Because these documents were only recently flagged, the department did not specify when exactly they were discovered or why they weren’t included in earlier counts, adding to the confusion around the release schedule. The announcement drew rapid attention online and in political circles. Some lawmakers wrote letters calling for independent audits of the Justice Department’s compliance, saying victims deserved full transparency and accountability. Others publicly criticized the department for claiming an exhaustive review earlier in the year, only to say now that there were still vast amounts of material left to examine. Online reactions also spread quickly, with many commentators questioning how such a large cache of documents was overlooked and what the newly found files might contain. These posts gained traction across social media platforms, reflecting sustained public interest and frustration over the slow pace of disclosure. For now, the Justice Department maintains it is committed to releasing all the records as quickly and transparently as possible, while balancing legal obligations to protect individuals involved in the case. In the end, this latest delay highlights the challenges of handling one of the most sensitive and politically charged document releases in recent memory and why simply meeting a deadline may turn out to be far more complicated than lawmakers and the public initially expected.