A United States congressman has revealed the names of six men in the Jeffrey Epstein files whose identities were blacked out when the records were released to the public, including American billionaire Leslie Wexner, who appears to have been labelled a coconspirator by the FBI in 2019.

Speaking in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna said he was naming the men after spending two hours reviewing the unredacted documents with Republican Congressman Thomas Massie during a viewing facilitated by the US Department of Justice.

“If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files,” Khanna said.

Since the bipartisan duo pushed through the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in November, the US government has released millions of pages of documents, including emails and photographs, relating to the criminal prosecution of the late sex offender Epstein and his socialite girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

The inclusion of a name in the files does not imply wrongdoing by that person. However, the Justice Department’s handling of the release of the files – which advocacy groups and Epstein’s accusers said are far too heavily redacted – has come under fire.

So who are the six men named by Khanna? And why are names blacked out in the Epstein files at all?

What did Ro Khanna tell the US Congress?

Speaking from the House floor on Tuesday, Khanna asked: “Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?”

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Referring to last year’s law that mandated the release of the files, Khanna said: “The Epstein Transparency Act requires them to unredact those FBI files, and yet the Justice Department said to me and to Congressman Massie, ‘We just uploaded whatever the FBI sent us.’”

“That means the survivor statement to the FBI naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein’s island, who went to his ranch, who went to his home and raped and abused underage girls or saw underage girls being paraded – they were all hidden,” the congressman said. “They were all redacted. It’s a little bit of a farce.”

The Justice Department began allowing members of Congress to view the unredacted files on Monday at its headquarters in Washington, DC. They may see the files on computers and may not bring any electronic devices with them. They are permitted only to take notes and may not make any electronic copies.

The Justice Department is believed to be in possession of nearly 6 million pages of documents related to Epstein. They are from about two decades of investigations into allegations that he had serially sexually abused girls. He died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting a sex-trafficking trial. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking two years later.

Although all of the files were supposed to have been released within 30 days of the Epstein Files Transparency Act being signed into law on November 19, so far 3.5 million have been.

The files referenced by Khanna and Massie do not appear to implicate the six men in any specific crimes.

However, Khanna said the redactions of their names was a failure of the Justice Department. The California lawmaker accused the government of shielding their names “for no apparent reason”.

Since Khanna’s speech to Congress, the Justice Department has partially unredacted some of the files he and Massie have pointed to.

What do we know about the six named men?

Khanna identified one of the men in the files he reviewed as Wexner, the billionaire retail tycoon and former owner of Victoria’s Secret.

Wexner had a lengthy friendship with Epstein, whom he hired to handle his investments for many years.

While the relationship between Wexner and Epstein was already known, Khanna revealed that the FBI had also considered Wexner a coconspirator with Epstein at some point during its investigation. No criminal charges were ever brought against the billionaire in connection with Epstein’s crimes.

On Tuesday after Khanna’s speech, the Justice Department unredacted parts of an internal document dated August 15, 2019, from the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, which included a reference to Wexner as a coconspirator. That file can now be seen unredacted on the Justice Department’s website for the Epstein files.

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Another of the men named by Khanna was Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, one of Dubai’s most powerful and well-connected people. The chairman and chief executive officer of the logistics giant DP World exchanged messages with Epstein for years before and after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

The friendly exchanges between the two include discussions about deals and also mention bin Sulayem visiting Epstein’s private island while sharing contacts in business and politics. The two men also shared salacious comments about women.

The removals of the redactions also confirmed that bin Sulayem’s email address was used in a correspondence with Epstein in which Epstein remarked, “I loved the torture video.”

Khanna named four other men: Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov and Nicola Caputo. However, Al Jazeera could not independently verify their identities or affiliations.

A department spokesperson quoted by the US-based broadcaster CBS News said the lesser-known four of the six names mentioned by Khanna “are only included in this one document out of all the files. Wexner is referenced nearly 200 times in the files, and Sultan bin Sulayem appears over 4,700 times.”

How has the Justice Department responded?

Todd Blanche, deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, said some of the redacted names mentioned by Khanna and Massie did appear unredacted in other documents in the Epstein files.

In a post on X relating to email correspondence between Epstein and bin Sulayem, Blanche wrote: “You know it’s an email address that was redacted. The law requires redactions for personally identifiable information, including if in an email address. And you know that Sultan’s name is available unredacted in the files.”

Blanche also referred to another email exchange in which bin Sulayem’s name can be seen but his email is blacked out.

“Be honest, and stop grandstanding,” Blanche added in a comment aimed at Massie.

However, the Epstein Files Transparency Act permits such redactions only when the information would identify a victim.

In a post on X, Massie said he had viewed a list of 20 names that appears in the documents, 18 of which had been redacted. Only the names of Epstein and Maxwell appeared.

The deputy attorney general responded by saying the list “has numerous victim names” and the department had “unredacted all non-victim names”.

But Massie pointed out: “Four of the 18 redacted names on this document are men born before 1970.”

There is no information about what the purpose of the list mentioned by Massie was. In the now-updated document, only two names were redacted when Al Jazeera reviewed it on Wednesday.

What does the law state about redactions?

The Epstein Files Transparency Act mandates that no record from the files should be redacted just because it might result in embarrassment or reputational harm to any government official or national, foreign or public figure.

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Redactions of information are permitted in the following circumstances: if it contains personally identifiable information of victims, depicts or contains child sexual abuse material, jeopardises an active federal investigation, and depicts or contains images of death or physical abuse.

The act also allows redactions when the document contains information that has been specifically authorised to be kept secret in the interests of national security or foreign policy by an executive order.

The act further says all redactions must be accompanied by a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress.

Who decides what is redacted in the Epstein files?

Under US law, a statute like the Epstein Files Transparency Act designates the attorney general – currently Pam Bondi – as responsible for executing it.

In the case of the Epstein files, the law requires Bondi, who heads the Justice Department, to make all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials in the possession of the department, including the FBI and US Attorney’s Offices, publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format.

The attorney general then delegates these tasks to her department and relevant agencies while officials conduct a page-by-page review.

Some emails and other documents may include details about Epstein’s victims, but these must be redacted to ensure victims’ privacy and security.

But US media reported that many of the files the department received from the FBI had already been redacted.

“And guess what? The FBI sent scrubbed files,” Khanna said.

Have victims’ identities been revealed in the Epstein files?

The Justice Department has been facing increasing pressure over its handling of redactions in the Epstein documents.

Not only has it been accused of shielding the identities of those exchanging emails and other messages with Epstein but also of failing to redact victims’ identities.

On February 2, the Justice Department said it had removed several thousand documents and media items from its Epstein files website after lawyers representing Epstein’s accusers complained to a New York judge that the lives of nearly 100 victims had been “turned upside down” by sloppy redactions during the release of the records.

The published material included nude photos showing the faces of potential victims who appeared young, although it was unclear if they were under-age, as well as names and email addresses, including information that was either completely unredacted or not fully obscured.

The department has blamed this on “technical or human error” and said that, given the enormous task to vet millions of documents, “the teams may have inadvertently redacted individuals or left those unredacted who should have been.”

Attorney Jay Clayton said the department has now “revised its protocols for addressing flagging documents”, adding that the documents are being re-evaluated before reposting, “ideally within 24 to 36 hours”.