For the past week, official Washington has talked constantly about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, except for the agency that has custody of the Epstein files.

The Justice Department has been silent.

On Tuesday, the House and Senate agreed to pass a bill calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all unclassified information and files related to the sprawling sex trafficking investigation into the onetime powerful financier.

The Justice Department so far has continued to say little about how it would respond to that demand. There are many reasons to doubt that a bulk release of the files is imminent.

If President Donald Trump wanted Bondi to release all of the Epstein files, he could have ordered her to do so at any point in the past six months. He didn’t.

On Sunday, when Trump did an about-face and said House Republicans should vote in favor of releasing the Epstein files, he notably did not say he favored releasing them. Instead, he said in a social media post that the House “can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!”

What Congress is “legally entitled to” is a more complicated question than the rhetoric from Capitol Hill might imply.

The legislation that Congress agreed to pass Tuesday gives the Justice Department a few exceptions under which it can refuse to release material. Among them: if release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”

On Friday, Trump ordered Bondi to launch a new federal investigation related to Epstein — this one aimed at his ties to several prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, megadonor Reid Hoffman and former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers. Bondi said the top federal prosecutor in New York City would take on the task.

Bondi began that investigation more than four months after the department said it would not be releasing the Epstein files and that the files contained no information that would lead officials to investigate anyone else.

Bondi said Wednesday she had received new information that led her to now investigate people. She did not provide any details about that information.

“There is new information, additional information and, again, we will continue to follow the law and investigate any leads,” Bondi said.

That new investigation could become a reason for the Justice Department to block release of many files. Bondi and her deputies have previously said they cannot release information about active investigations.

Other information could be covered by grand jury secrecy rules. The bill Congress agreed to pass does not explicitly waive those.

The Justice Department has also said many of the files cannot be released because they contain sensitive victim information and pornographic material. The legislation contains another exception allowing the Justice Department to withhold material that “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” or “depicts or contains child sexual abuse.”

“Of course we are going to protect victims,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the news conference alongside Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. “And the law as written allows us to do that.”

There would not be much recourse for Congress if the Justice Department refused to hand over the files since the bill does not have any enforcement teeth.

If the House decided to issue a subpoena demanding the materials, and the Justice Department refused, the chamber’s leaders could refer officials for criminal prosecution. But it would fall to Bondi to decide whether to prosecute herself or her deputies, rendering that threat potentially empty.

On Tuesday, some Republican lawmakers said they were confident that given the legislation, the administration would release the files. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he hoped the vote in the House was so overwhelming that it would persuade the administration not to block the release of the files.

“I think it’d be a mistake,” Paul said. “If they really try to play games and obscure some of that, I think it’ll really backfire on them.”

Some Democrats were more pessimistic. Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont said he would not be surprised if Bondi refused to release documents because of the investigation she announced last week.

“It would be naive of any of us to think that Trump has really had a conversion,” Welch said, referring to the president’s call for House Republicans to vote for the bill after months of trying to block it. “He does not want the information out.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said he met with 10 other Senate Democrats on Tuesday evening to discuss ways to press the administration to release the files.

Democrats will do “everything we can to make sure all of it, all of it comes to light and they don’t hide evidence against anyone who might be incriminated by these documents,” Schumer told reporters.

In August, the House subpoenaed the Justice Department demanding the Epstein files. The Justice Department released some files, though that release fueled further public frustration since much of the material had already been made public.

That subpoena, in theory, is still in play, and Congress could attempt to enforce it.

For months, Trump has struggled to contain backlash from within his own party over the Justice Department’s decision this summer not to release the bulk of its investigative file on Epstein. Democrats have accused the president of attempting to hide embarrassing material documenting his years-long friendship with the disgraced financier.

Trump has said that he knew Epstein socially in Palm Beach, Florida, and that they had a falling-out in the mid-2000s. Trump’s name appears several times in previously released documents from Epstein’s estate, but the president has maintained that he had “no idea” about Epstein’s criminal behavior. The documents have produced no evidence of wrongdoing by Trump.

Some within the Republican Party have demanded further disclosures, believing the Justice Department is covering up information that could be damaging to the prominent and powerful friends with whom Epstein surrounded himself. Others have questioned the circumstances of Epstein’s 2019 death while in custody awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial. He was found hanged in his cell, and the death was ruled a suicide.

The questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein reached a fever pitch last week when the House Oversight Committee released thousands of pages of Epstein’s emails, including several in which he referenced his relationship to Trump.