Epstein Files Show Classified Material and Missing Pages, Contradicting DOJ Claims

Attorney General Todd Blanche has long said the so-called Epstein files, including those kept from the public, contain no secret national security information. A CBS News review of the released documents suggests that claim does not hold up.

When the releases began last winter, Blanche, then the deputy attorney general, noted that the Epstein Files Transparency Act allowed information to be withheld in the interest of national security or foreign policy. But he said "no files are being withheld or redacted on that basis." He added: "There's not some tranche of super-secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we're withholding, we're actually not withholding anything based upon [national defense information]."

Yet the contents of at least three documents in the released tranche indicate that classified information was among the files the Justice Department collected. One shows that Blanche's own Office of the Deputy Attorney General received classified material related to Epstein in March 2025. By law, material can be classified only for national security reasons. What was classified, and why, remains unknown.

Among the released files is an eight-page timeline of the FBI New York office's efforts last year to deliver its Epstein files to Justice Department headquarters. On March 25, 2025, it records delivery of "16 Epstein items to ODAG," and two of those items are described as "Epstein Transparency Project - Classified Material" and "CDs with classified materials (x2)." An email sent the same day by the unit chief of the FBI's National Security Classification Operations Unit says three documents were "identified that remain classified." One was described as an "FBI document which is classified when see-through." The descriptions of the other two, and the identity of the email's recipient, are redacted.

CBS News also analyzed the numbering system the Justice Department used to organize the files. Each released page carries an EFTA number, short for Epstein Files Transparency Act, running from 1 to 2,858,498. Many pages also bear older numbers from earlier cases, such as the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution, or from bank records collected from JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank. In tens of thousands of instances, the EFTA number advances by one while the older numbers jump by two or more, a sign that pages were removed after the department obtained them.

In one example, a series of about 4,500 images of checks from Epstein's accounts is missing 66 check images, sometimes only the front or back. A separate "R1" sequence covering roughly 995,000 pages shows similar gaps, ranging from one page to hundreds.

"Financial records were not a permissible category for removal," Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told CBS News. She said prosecutors rely on such numbers precisely so that gaps get noticed.

The Justice Department did not respond to CBS News' recent inquiries. It has said it collected 6 million pages, released more than 3 million after reviewing for duplication, privilege and relevance, and that everything the law required has been released. Congressional challenges and a lawsuit are now pressing for the withheld material.