On January 30, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released more than 3.5 million pages of documents, alongside 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, related to its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

After years of public pressure, the DOJ released the files, presenting the move as a step toward transparency under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Instead, survivors say the disclosure caused immediate harm.

While the files referenced powerful men long suspected of enabling or participating in Epstein’s abuse, no new charges were announced. What did happen was faster and more direct: survivors’ identities appeared unredacted, private information became searchable online, and victims faced harassment, threats, and renewed trauma.

Perpetrators named, accountability absent

For years, Epstein survivors have called for investigations into the men in positions of power who exploited or protected him. The latest document release appeared, on its surface, to move closer to that goal. But survivors say the disclosures once again failed to deliver accountability.

Danielle Bensky, a survivor who Epstein abused when she was a teenage ballerina, said she hoped the release would finally lead to consequences for those involved. Instead, her name and what she believed were confidential conversations were made public. Now public and fighting for justice, she said in an interview with NBC News:

I thought it was carelessness, and then I went to incompetence … And now it feels, it feels a bit deliberate. It feels like a bit of an attack on survivors.

The DOJ had previously assured survivors that their identities would be protected. But attorneys Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards, who represent Epstein survivors, say the department failed to uphold that commitment—calling the release “the single most egregious violation of victim privacy in one day in United States history.”

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