A federal judge has planned to have an urgent hearing this week after the Department of Justice released 3 million documents Friday and accidentally revealed the identities and personal information of several survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a legal expert reported Monday.
Legal expert and MS NOW correspondent Lisa Rubin described how an attorney representing survivors of Epstein had called out the Trump administration for its error.
In a post on X, Rubin explained the reaction by the Attorney Brittany Henderson and U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, and Judge Richard Berman who planned to meet with the attorney and their clients on Wednesday.
"NEW: After an Epstein survivors' lawyer details what she says may be 'the single most egregious violation of victim privacy in one day in United States history,' a federal judge has now scheduled a Wednesday a.m. hearing & urged DOJ and the lawyer to bring their clients," Rubin wrote.
The DOJ, which was already a month past the deadline to release the full Epstein files, released more materials on Friday and raised more concerns among survivor whose private information — something that was clearly carved out of disclosure requirements under federal law, and that the administration itself has said it is working hard to avoid doing — actually happened.
Rubin said last week that an "initial review of documents just produced in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act indicate that despite a promise (and the obligation) to protect victim-identifying information, the DOJ has revealed the names and other identifying details of known survivors of Jeffrey Epstein."
Rubin and her MS NOW team had been going through the files since they were released Friday.
"In at least one case, MS NOW found a driver's license with an unredacted photo among the documents produced today. None of these documents were previously produced in public court filings," she said.
Epstein was a wealthy financier accused of operating an extensive sex trafficking operation targeting underage girls for over a decade, exploiting his wealth, connections and status to recruit, groom and abuse victims while evading serious legal consequences for years. Epstein died in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, and his death — officially ruled a suicide — sparked widespread conspiracy theories and investigations into potential accomplices, leading to the eventual arrest and conviction of associate Ghislaine Maxwell and renewed scrutiny of his network of powerful associates.