U.S. lawmakers can sue to ensure release of Epstein files, but not as part of Maxwell case, judge says

Documents that were included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files are photographed Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

NEW YORK — U.S. congressional co-sponsors of a law forcing the Justice Department to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell can file a lawsuit seeking a court-appointed observer to ensure compliance, but they lack the legal right to append their demand to her criminal case, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer blocked U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. from intervening in Maxwell’s sex trafficking case. The lawmakers, whose Epstein Files Transparency Act was signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump in November, petitioned the judge last week in a bid to speed the public disclosure of files related to investigations into the late financier and Maxwell, his longtime confidant.

Engelmayer largely agreed with the Justice Department’s insistence that he, as the judge overseeing Maxwell’s case, had no authority to grant Khanna and Massie’s request for an independent monitor to ensure the immediate release of more than 2 million documents that the government has identified as investigative materials.

Khanna and Massie said the slow disclosure of the documents violated the law and had caused “serious trauma to survivors.”

Aside from the possibility of filing a lawsuit, the lawmakers are at liberty to use their legislative tools to improve oversight of the Justice Department, Engelmayer wrote. The Epstein law, passed after months of public and political pressure, contains no mechanisms or penalties to ensure compliance.

“We appreciate Judge Engelmayer’s timely response and attention to our request, and we respect his decision,” Khanna said in a statement. “He said that we raised ‘legitimate concerns’ about whether DOJ is complying with the law. We will continue to use every legal option to ensure the files are released and the survivors see justice.”

After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it has had hundreds of lawyers reviewing yet-to-be-disclosed records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of hundreds of sex abuse victims. So far, only about 12,000 documents have been made public.

Engelmayer said questions raised by Khanna and Massie raised about whether the department was complying with the law were “undeniably important and timely.” But, he said, the way in which the members of Congress were trying to intervene was not permitted.

Engelmayer inherited Maxwell’s case after the trial judge, Alison Nathan, was appointed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He ruled that has no authority to supervise the department’s compliance with the new law, and that Massie and Khanna have no standing, or legal right, to insinuate themselves into Maxwell’s case.

Engelmayer said he has received letters and emails from Epstein abuse survivors in support of the lawmakers’ request for appointment of a neutral overseer.

“These express concern that DOJ otherwise will not comply with the Act,” wrote the judge, who was nominated by Democratic president Barack Obama.

The department has been “paying ‘lip service’ to the victims” and “failing to treat us ‘with the solicitude’ we deserve,” survivors wrote, according to Engelmayer.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her December 2021 sex trafficking conviction. She recently petitioned the federal court for her release, maintaining that new information has emerged that warrants her release. A jury found that she had helped to recruit girls for Epstein to abuse over the past quarter-century and had also participated in some of the abuse.

Epstein died in a federal jail in New York in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. The death was ruled a suicide.

Michael R. Sisak And Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press