The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the so-called Epstein files, a court filing has revealed, as Democrats step up criticism of the Trump administration’s “lawlessness” for keeping records under seal.

The department conceded that only 12,285 documents, totalling 125,575 pages, relating to the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have been published to date, despite a federal law requiring the vast majority to be released by 19 December.

Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, wrote a five-page update to Paul Engelmayer, the federal New York judge overseeing the case, on Monday, asserting that efforts to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims were a priority, and had slowed the process.

“There are more than two million documents potentially responsive to the Act that are in various phases of review,” she wrote in the letter co-signed by Todd Blanche, her deputy, and Jay Clayton, US attorney for the southern district of New York.

"What are they trying to hide?” Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a post to X on Monday accusing the justice department of failing to submit a required unredacted list to Congress “of all government officials and politically exposed persons” named or referenced in the files.

“It’s been 17 DAYS since the Trump DOJ first broke the law and failed to release all the Epstein files. It’s been 14 DAYS since Trump’s DOJ released anything at all – with the DOJ doing everything in its power to delay and obfuscate.”