WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leadership blocked a Democrat-backed measure Thursday that would direct the chamber to take legal action over the Justice Department’s much-criticized handling of the Jeffrey Epstein documents.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, on the floor, criticized the Trump administration’s response to the law Congress passed last year that required the release of documents tied to the deceased sex offender.

The New York Democrat said millions of pages of documents that have not been released could contain financial records, letters, emails and the names of conspirators. “These are things the public deserves to see and they are shrouded in darkness,” he said.

And, Schumer said, the documents that have been released have often been redacted to an “absurd degree.”

“Look at this,” he said, holding up a completely blacked out document. “There are hundreds of pages that look just like this. This is not transparency. This is not what the law requires. This is a mockery of the truth, and an insult to the survivors.”

Schumer sought unanimous consent to pass a resolution that would direct Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to initiate or intervene in civil lawsuits in the name of the Senate to seek “appropriate relief” for the “failure of the Department of Justice to act in a manner consistent” with the Epstein files law.

“If the administration will not follow the law, which it isn’t, the Senate must act. No one — not even the president — is above the law,” Schumer said. He said 15 of his Democratic colleagues were co-sponsors.

Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., objected and blocked the effort.

“This is another reckless political stunt designed to distract Americans from Democrats’ dangerous plan to shut down the Department of Homeland Security,” Barrasso said, adding the move would delay air travel and delay the preparedness of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other consequences.

The Justice Department identified more than 6 million pages that were potentially covered by the law but acknowledged the total production from the department was nearly 3.5 million pages.

The transparency law had an original deadline of Dec. 19, when the DOJ released a limited number of files. They released a sprawling new trove of documents Friday, saying they were providing more than 3 million additional pages, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

The document production has been plagued with other issues, critics say, with the department exposing information that identifies victims while at the same time redacting the information of people within Epstein’s orbit and those connected to his crimes.

The department has said the Epstein files law allows the department to withhold certain information, such as the personally identifiable information of victims, depiction of child sexual abuse material, images of physical abuse and information that would jeopardize an active federal investigation.

Congress last year passed the law mandating the release of investigative documents on Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, hoping to shed light on Epstein’s network and any figures connected to the sexual exploitation of girls.

A potential lawsuit from the Senate would be among the most serious options to challenge the department’s compliance with the law.

But the Republican majority in the House and Senate has broadly declined to pull the political and legal levers that could apply more pressure on the Trump administration to show it’s in compliance.

On the House side, some lawmakers have requested meetings seeking to gain further access to the documents.

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., main backers of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, sent a letter asking to take up an offer outlined by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has said congressional lawmakers could arrange to review unredacted versions of the document production.

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