WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Eighteen months after Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to release the Epstein files, his administration now has a legal deadline of Friday to do so.

It comes after Congress passed a bill that forces the Department of Justice’s hand.

Senate Democrats say they’re already gearing up for a battle in court should the Trump administration miss that Friday deadline to release the Epstein files.

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon explained why his fellow Democrats believe that this will end up in court, “We smell a rat. Why? The president campaigned on releasing the files.”

It’s been 11 months since President Donald Trump took office and for those 11 months the Epstein files have remained sealed.

Congress passed a bill to intervene, which legally forces their release by this Friday.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota says the new law is clear, “that bill set a specific deadline December 19th, and it is a must. It’s not a may. It’s a must. And it says that no records shall be withheld, delayed or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity.”

But that doesn’t mean everything will come to light. Gray Media’s Washington News Bureau correspondent Molly Martinez asked senators about their contingency plan. “If they do release it and it’s so heavily redacted that there’s nothing of substance in it?”

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut explained that they have a way to get at the truth, “we will know what they are concealing because of the survivors. Your question may be, how do you know that they’re hiding stuff? The survivors will give us the knowledge we need to pursue the truth.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has maintained President Donald Trump has done nothing wrong; despite Democrats saying his name allegedly appears in the files nearly 15 hundred times.