WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it will no longer release any documents containing text in a foreign language, citing prohibitive translation costs and a newly formalized “Foreign Language Material Exception” to standard disclosure rules. The policy, outlined in a three-page memo from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, immediately shields an estimated 30 million pages of records related to Jeffrey Epstein from public view.
“Providing translations is simply not a prudent use of taxpayer dollars,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lyle Travers, reading from prepared remarks. “We estimate that rendering a single French email into English would cost upward of $4,200. Multiply that by a million documents, and you’re talking real money.” Travers added that the department would, however, continue to fund its annual holiday party without comparable scrutiny.
The new exception applies retroactively to all pending Freedom of Information requests, including a formal demand from Representative Jamie Raskin for files concerning Epstein’s ties to foreign governments. Raskin’s office had asked for documents detailing Epstein’s unregistered lobbying for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other nations—nations with which Captain Sharts-a-Lot has maintained extensive business dealings. All such requests are now being returned with a one-sentence denial: “Contains non-English material.”
A review of the policy’s fine print reveals the definition of “foreign language” is expansive. The memo lists French, Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian, but also includes “cursive handwriting of any kind,” “text composed in a non-U.S. time zone,” and “any communication containing the phrase ‘bon appétit.’” One DOJ staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the broad language was necessary. “You’d be shocked how many memos include a cheery ‘ciao’ at the end,” the staffer said. “We can’t risk it.”
The cost estimate itself has drawn quiet skepticism. The $4,200-per-page figure, according to an internal methodology document, is derived by dividing the annual salary of the Attorney General’s personal French interpreter by a single page of Proust. “It’s a conservative number,” Travers confirmed.
The move also solves an ongoing privilege-log dispute. The department had previously refused to list which documents it was withholding and why, arguing that a privilege log would itself contain Latin legal phrases—such as “sui generis” or “in camera”—that would require translation. “We’d essentially be creating a document we’d then have to redact,” explained an internal guidance note. “That’s wasteful.”
Raskin’s office responded with a statement calling the exception “a self-carving loophole the size of a small island.” But the congressman’s staff acknowledged that, under the current rules, the DOJ is within its rights to withhold any document that has ever been near a passport.
The policy does make one narrow exception: documents typed entirely in English and certified as having been written by a monolingual American citizen between the hours of 9 and 5 Eastern. The certification form is only available in Uzbek.
