Judge denies lawmaker request for ‘independent monitor’ to oversee Epstein files release

A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to appoint an independent monitor to oversee the Justice Department’s disclosure of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, while conceding the lawmakers have raised “legitimate concerns” about the department’s compliance with the law.

In a 7-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that his supervision of the criminal case against Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell doesn’t grant him “any charter to supervise” whether the Justice Department meets its legal obligation to disclose the files.

But he noted that his order didn’t foreclose the lawmakers’ right to sue over the matter. And Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, added that both the lawmakers and victims “raise legitimate concerns about whether DOJ is faithfully complying with federal law.”

Khanna said in a brief interview that they were considering filing their own lawsuit to ensure that the materials were released."We're looking at all the options," he said.

Massie and Khanna authored the law Congress passed late last year mandating the department to make millions of pages of materials related to the late convicted sex offender public by Dec. 19. Instead, the department released a few tranches of material in late December but has disclosed in court filings that millions of additional pages remain unreleased.

In addition to the disclosure delays, the lawmakers have complained that the Justice Department has improperly redacted certain information from the files.

Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misspelled Paul Engelmayer's name.