Trump Signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act Under Pressure, Then His DOJ Defied Both the Law and a Federal Judge's Order to Release the Files — the Same Associate Attorney General Just Referred for Discipline in the IRS Case Asked the Court to Ignore Its Own Deadline

In November 2025, under intense bipartisan and public pressure, Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which ordered the Justice Department to release all files connected to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation by December 19. His administration has spent the months since not complying. After journalist Katie Phang sued over withheld materials, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the administration had likely violated the Transparency Act and ordered the DOJ to release and unredact the disputed files or explain why they must stay hidden. Hours before the deadline, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward — the same official a federal judge referred for bar discipline days earlier over the sham IRS settlement — asked Sullivan to delay the deadline by 60 days or disregard it entirely. The DOJ then formally declined to hand over additional unredacted files, claiming the redactions were appropriate and protected victims. Among the disputed materials, according to reporting, are FBI interview notes from a woman who alleged she was forced to perform a sex act on Trump in the 1980s after meeting him through Epstein — an allegation that is uncorroborated and that Trump has strongly denied. Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, frustrated that the department was withholding files it was legally required to disclose while survivors' names leaked out, introduced a second bill — the Epstein Files Transparency Act II. The throughline: a president who signed a transparency law to quiet a scandal, then had his Justice Department defy the law, a court, and Congress to keep the files sealed.

There is a simple test for whether a transparency law is real: what happens when the files it demands are inconvenient to the people in power. The Epstein Files Transparency Act just failed that test — not because the law is weak, but because the administration sworn to execute it decided not to.

The law Trump signed

In November 2025, after months of bipartisan pressure and public fury over the administration's handling of the Epstein case, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and Trump signed it. The law was explicit: the Justice Department was to release all files connected to the investigations of Jeffrey Epstein by December 19.

Signing it was the politically necessary move — a way to appear to want sunlight. Complying with it was a different matter.

The stonewall

The department did not release the files as the law required. Independent journalist Katie Phang sued over the withheld materials, arguing the administration had violated the Transparency Act by holding back documents and names without adequate justification. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan agreed the administration had likely violated the law, and ordered the DOJ to release and unredact the disputed files — or explain, item by item, why each redaction was lawful.

The response tells you everything. Hours before the deadline, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward asked Sullivan to delay the deadline by 60 days — or simply disregard it and accept the DOJ's reasons for withholding. When that failed, the department formally declined to turn over the additional unredacted files, asserting the redactions were appropriate and necessary to protect victims.

Woodward's name should be familiar. He is the same associate attorney general a federal judge referred for bar discipline just days earlier, over the sham IRS lawsuit and the $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" settlement — where the same court found the DOJ had abdicated its duty and where his prior representation of Trump-aligned clients was cited as a conflict of interest. The official fighting to keep the Epstein files sealed is, by a federal judge's finding, already operating under an ethical cloud.

What is in the files

The administration frames its resistance as victim protection. But the fight is not only about survivors' privacy, which the law already accounts for. According to reporting, the disputed materials include FBI interview notes from a woman who alleged that she was forced to perform a sex act on Trump in the 1980s, after meeting him through Epstein. That allegation is uncorroborated, and Trump has strongly and categorically denied it. It is included here not as a proven fact — it is neither proven nor disproven — but because it is directly relevant to the central conflict of interest: the president's Justice Department is suppressing files in an investigation that reportedly contains an allegation against the president himself. A department cannot credibly claim it is withholding those specific records solely to protect victims when the president is the person the records would expose.

Congress tries again

The defiance did not go unanswered on Capitol Hill. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) — the bipartisan pair behind the original transparency push — introduced a follow-up, the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, arguing the department had failed to comply with the first law: withholding files that should have been released while, perversely, allowing the names of Epstein survivors to become public. The administration had inverted the law's purpose — shielding the powerful, exposing the victims.

The pattern

Every stage of this administration's Epstein handling has bent toward concealment — the shredded documents, the death in custody, the quiet interviews, the pressure on those who talked. This is the same instinct wearing the costume of legal process: sign the transparency law to defuse the outrage, then use the Justice Department's lawyers to run out the clock, defy the judge, and dare Congress to make them comply.

A government that had nothing to hide would have released the files by the December deadline the president himself signed into law. Instead, seven months later, it is in federal court arguing that a judge should ignore his own order — represented by a lawyer already referred for discipline — to keep sealed an investigation that reportedly names the man his department answers to. The law said release everything. The administration decided the law did not apply to the files that mattered most.