当众议院监督委员会公布了爱泼斯坦遗产的大量文件和电子邮件时本月早些时候爱泼斯坦的一位著名律师说，在得知这些文件包括几十个未经编辑的受害者姓名后，被定罪的性犯罪者的据称受害者做出了“普遍恐慌”的回应受害者本周告诉一名联邦法官。
“我以为政府已经承诺要修改我们的名字和身份识别材料。据美联社报道，一名据称的受害者对律师布拉德利·爱德华兹说:“我不明白这怎么又发生了。”周三提交法庭文件.
“政府对幸存者的这种疏忽是无法理解的。这简直是不可能的，”根据文件，另一名据称的受害者说。“我不明白这怎么可能。”
根据法庭文件，另一名据称的受害者写道，“我无法在精神上和情感上发挥作用或睡觉”。
司法部现在面临着12月19日的最后期限，以释放成千上万的爱泼斯坦的文件，要求爱泼斯坦文件透明法案,爱德华兹呼吁一名联邦法官命令DOJ改善审查政策，以防止再次发布有关据称受害者的潜在敏感信息。
“这些女人不是政治棋子。他们是母亲、妻子和女儿。爱德华兹在提交给美国地方法官理查德·伯曼的文件中写道:“这些妇女受到杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的虐待，在某些情况下还受到其他人的虐待，她们的权利在过去已经受到政府的侵犯。”“他们是人，有权得到尊严和尊重，并感到安全，受到我们国家的保护，而我们的国家一次又一次地辜负了他们。”
根据爱德华兹的说法，众议院监督发布的内容包括几十名受害者未经编辑的姓名和个人信息，其中包括被虐待时未成年的妇女。爱德华兹写道，仅一份文件就包含了28个未经编辑的所谓受害者的名字。基于这个问题的范围，爱德华兹说他相信DOJ要么“不知道杰弗里·爱泼斯坦所有受害者的身份，因此无法对文件进行适当的修订”，要么“故意未能保护受害者免受公众曝光。”
爱德华兹写道:“虽然我们将详细说明法院无疑会提供的各种借口，但这是绝对不可接受的，而且必须在公开发布任何额外文件之前纠正这一计划。”
爱德华兹进一步指出，DOJ在7月公开承认“爱泼斯坦伤害了一千多名受害者”基于这一陈述，爱德华兹在文件中要求法院向DOJ确认，在向众议院监督委员会提交文件之前，“它承担了编辑其拥有的所有1000多名受害者姓名的繁重而必要的任务。”
“在这一尖锐的调查中，法院将了解到DOJ的编辑过程及其过程努力与它公开承认的受害者人数是如此不可调和，以至于当面对这种差异时，它的反应将介于不连贯的含糊不清、不合理和彻底的失实陈述之间，”Edwards写道。
爱德华兹在文件中还声称，受害者无法联系司法部，以防止同样的事情再次发生。
“尽管有无数的援助请求，但有一个单一的实体，受害者似乎无法找到一种参与的方式，并且迄今为止一直是受害者身份保护的主要违反者——司法部，”他写道。
由于DOJ已经掌握了数十万份爱泼斯坦文件，爱德华兹还对特朗普政府寻求单独解决问题的意图表示怀疑大陪审团材料.
DOJ要求法官们纽约和佛罗里达州授权公布大陪审团对爱泼斯坦和麦克斯韦尔起诉的记录和证据，这些信息通常是不公开的。在《爱泼斯坦文件透明法案》通过之前，DOJ也提出过类似的请求，但都被法官驳回。
“这个小得令人难以置信、基本上不相关的大陪审团材料子集[似乎]只不过是DOJ的一种永久干扰，它无法向美国人民提供与杰弗里·爱泼斯坦有关的完全透明，同时保护受害者，”文件称。
爱德华兹要求伯尔曼法官命令司法部澄清他们计划公布哪些文件以及编辑这些文件的过程。他还要求能够与DOJ协商，以确保在编辑过程中使用完整的受害者名单。
伯曼法官周三对这封信做出了回应，命令司法部在12月1日周一中午之前提供他们寻求公布的材料的“详细描述”，以及“政府试图用来保护爱泼斯坦受害者权利的隐私程序的详细描述，包括任何编辑。”
在一个周三单独申报美国司法部长杰伊·克莱顿(Jay Clayton)表示，他的办公室将“与已知受害者的律师就隐瞒和编辑的姓名和条款进行磋商。”
克莱顿还澄清了司法部寻求公布的文件的范围，包括证人访谈记录、搜查证申请、财务和旅行记录、大陪审团传票回报、学校记录、爱泼斯坦遗产的材料和执法记录。
Epstein alleged victims lawyer sends scathing letter over DOJ document release
When the House Oversight Committee released a trove of files and emails from the Epstein estateearlier this month, alleged victims of the convicted sex offender responded with "widespread panic" after learning the documents included dozens of unredacted victim names, a prominent attorney for Epsteinvictims told a federal judge this week.
"I thought the government had promised to redact our names and identifying material. I don't understand how this is happening again," one alleged victim told attorney Bradley Edwards, according to acourt filing Wednesday.
"This type of negligence by the government to a survivor is just unable to comprehend. It is just impossible," another alleged victim said, according to the filing. "I don't understand how this is possible."
"I have been unable to mentally and emotionally function or sleep," yet another alleged victim wrote, per the court filing.
With the Justice Department now facing a Dec. 19 deadline to release hundreds of thousands of Epstein files, as required by theEpstein Files Transparency Act,Edwards is calling on a federal judge to order the DOJ to improve their review policy to prevent another release of potentially sensitive information about alleged victims.
"These women are not political pawns. They are mothers, wives, and daughters. These are women who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein, and in some instances by others, and who have already had their rights violated in the past by the Government," Edwards wrote in the filing to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman."They are human beings who have the right to be treated with dignity and respect, and to feel safe and protected by our country, which has failed them time and time again."
According to Edwards, the House Oversight release included the unredacted names and personal information of dozens of victims, including women who were minors at the time of their abuse. One document alone contained 28 unredacted names of alleged victim, Edwards wrote. Based on the scope of the issue, Edwards said that he believesthe DOJ either "does not know the identities of all the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and thus cannot apply proper redactions to the files," or "is intentionally failing to protect victims from public exposure."
"While we will detail the various excuses that the Court will no doubt be provided, this is absolutely unacceptable and a program that must be rectified prior to the public release of any additional documents," Edwards wrote.
Edwards further noted that the DOJ publicly acknowledged in July that "Epstein harmed over one thousand victims." Based on that statement, Edwards asked in the filing that the court confirm with the DOJ that, prior to submitting the files to the House Oversight Committee, "it undertook the onerous and necessary task of redacting all one thousand plus victim names that it had in its possession."
"On that pointed inquiry, the court will learn the DOJ's redaction process and its process efforts are so irreconcilable with the number of victims it has publicly acknowledged that, when confronted with the discrepancy, its response will land somewhere between incoherent mumbling, non sequitur, and outright misrepresentation," Edwards wrote.
Edwards also alleged in the filing that victims have been unable to contact the Department of Justice to prevent the same thing from happening again.
"Despite numerous pleas for assistance, there is one singular entity that the victims cannot seem to find a way to engage and which has been the primary violator of the victims' identity protection thus far -- the Department of Justice," he wrote.
With the DOJ already possessing hundreds of thousands of Epstein documents, Edwards also cast doubt about the Trump administration's intention in seeking out separategrand jury material.
The DOJ has asked judges inNew YorkandFloridato authorize the release of grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell -- information that is typically not made public. Before the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ made similar requests that were denied by judges.
"[T]his incredibly small, and largely irrelevant, subset of grand jury materials [seems] to serve as nothing more than DOJ's perpetual distraction from providing the American people with full transparency as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein, while protecting the victims," the filing states.
Edwards asked Judge Berman to order the Department of Justice to clarify what documents they plan to release and the process for redacting them. He also requested the ability to confer with the DOJ to ensure that a complete list of victims' names is used in the redaction process.
Judge Berman responded to the letter Wednesday by ordering the Department of Justice, by noon Monday, Dec. 1, to provide a "detailed description" of the materials they seek to release and a "detailed description of the privacy process, including any redactions, the Government seeks to employ to protect the rights of Epstein victims."
In aseparate filing Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said his office would "confer with counsel for known victims concerning names and terms for withholding and redactions."
Clayton also clarified the breadth of the documents the Department of Justice seeks to release, including notes from witness interviews, search warrant applications, financial and travel records, grand jury subpoena returns, school records, materials from the Epstein estate, and law enforcement records.
