What's missing from the Epstein files?

When the Department of Justice released more than 3 million pages of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, survivors, advocates and lawmakers quickly raised questions about an apparent discrepancy: the DOJ had said it collected more than 6 million pages of material during its investigation but was only releasing half that number.

The Justice Department tells CBS News it "has released every document required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act," and maintains that those unreleased 3 million documents were either duplicative, unrelated to Epstein or protected by legal privilege.

But concerns persist about evidence that important documents are still being withheld. At the same time, the Government Accountability Office recently announced it was launching an investigation into the way documents that were released had information blacked out. That move comes at the request of several members of Congress.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says that if there are duplicates, "OK, that's fine, let's see them." He adds, "I think what people need to understand is … we're not sure what's in the 3 million."

CBS News has analyzed the archive not only for what has been disclosed, but also for documents that appear to be absent. Despite the unprecedented volume of material now available, it's apparent that many gaps remain in the public record surrounding Epstein's activities, his communication, the federal investigations into him and the circumstances surrounding his death behind bars .

Our review identified several areas where important questions remain unanswered or documents appear to remain unreleased.

Redaction issues

The Epstein Files Transparency Act provides only limited grounds for withholding information or redacting names. Its primary purpose is to protect victims. The bill specifically excluded "reputational harm, or political sensitivity" as a reason for redacting. Yet in many instances prominent individuals' names were redacted while victims' names were not.

Some redactions seem difficult to justify. In one example, a text where Epstein sent Steve Bannon a link to an article, Bannon's face was blacked out in a photo that had already been publicly posted online.

The DOJ redacted a photo of Steve Bannon in the Epstein files.

U.S. Department of Justice

Elsewhere, the names of business contacts and acquaintances of Epstein appear to have been redacted without an obvious reason under the terms of the law.

Many of the emails in the Epstein files had the names of his contacts and associates redacted. Some were later un-redacted after CBS News inquired about them.

U.S. Department of Justice

In another widely cited example, a 2002 email with the signoff "Love, Melania" had the full name and email of the sender and receiver redacted. In April, first lady Melania Trump acknowledged having exchanged emails with Ghislaine Maxwell, saying in a statement that it "cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence. My polite reply to her email doesn't amount to anything more than a trivial note."

A 2002 email in the Epstein files signed "Love, Melania," with the sender's and receiver's names redacted.

U.S. Department of Justice

The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the DOJ to provide a justification for every redaction. It permits withholding information that "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," but also states that all redactions must be accompanied by a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress. The Department of Justice has made no attempt to address specific redactions and instead issued a general statement saying its redactions were "[c]onsistent with the Act."

Members of Congress have been given the opportunity to review redacted material, but the process is time consuming and some have complained their searches are being monitored by the DOJ.

After CBS News reached out to the DOJ for comment on these redactions, the photo of Bannon and two of the emails were quietly un-redacted. After one of those was un-redacted, it revealed the sender was former U.K. diplomat Peter Mandelson , who was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of mishandling sensitive government documents, which BBC News reports he denies. Mandelson has said he regrets his friendship with Epstein and says he never witnessed criminal activity.

After CBS News reached out to the DOJ, the name on this email from former British diplomat Peter Mandelson to Jeffrey Epstein was un-redacted.

U.S. Department of Justice

A gap in email communications

The DOJ released millions of Epstein's emails. Nearly all originate from an email account he created around the time he went to jail in 2008: jeevacation@gmail.com.

Missing from the Epstein files are emails from his other, earlier accounts, including approximately 20,000 messages from Epstein's jeeproject@yahoo.com account, which were previously obtain…