The Justice Department said on Dec. 24 that it has uncovered more than 1 million additional documents potentially related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s case.

“The [Justice Department] has received these documents from [the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York] and the FBI to review them for release, in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, existing statutes, and judicial orders,” the department said in a social media post.

The department said, “we have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible.”

It added that processing the material may take a few weeks.

The statement prompted scrutiny from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who sponsored the law setting a deadline for disclosure last week. Since that deadline on Dec. 23, the Justice Department has released waves of documents.

He further said that the “DOJ did break the law by making illegal redactions and by missing the deadline.”

House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said in a statement on social media: “It’s outrageous that the DOJ has illegally withheld over 1 million documents from the public.”

The department said it’s committed to transparency on the issue but encountered backlash from members of Congress.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said he would continue to pressure the administration and questioned the timing.

In the Dec. 24 statement, the department said it was “continuing its unprecedented support for Epstein Transparency after the Biden administration declined to make any files public.”

It added that President Donald Trump’s first administration was “prosecuting Jeffrey Epstein for heinous crimes at the time of his death.”

Under the legislation approved nearly unanimously by Congress—with the sole exception of Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who withheld his support for the Epstein Transparency Act in the House—the administration was ordered to release files related to the sex offender by a Dec. 19 deadline.

The DOJ has started the process of releasing those files, with officials saying that not all of the records would be released on that day.

The Epstein files that were released earlier this week included nearly 30,000 additional pages, according to a DOJ statement posted on X.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a media interview over the weekend that the DOJ is working to make redactions to files about possible victims of Epstein, and that some redactions are due to the recently passed law.

“The reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that to protect victims,” Blanche told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

The DOJ, he added, is “going through a very methodical process with hundreds of lawyers looking at every single document and making sure that victims’ names and any of the information from victims is protected and redacted, which is exactly what the [Epstein Files] Transparency Act expects.”