DOJ's Todd Blanche suggests admin to withhold millions of Epstein files: 'Review is over!'
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared to confirm that the Justice Department plans to withhold millions of files on Jeffrey Epstein, an admission forced from ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.
On Friday, Blanche revealed that the DOJ planned to release around 3.5 million Epstein files later that same day, but acknowledged that the agency has “identified over 6 million” pages it may be required to release under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Appearing on ABC News Sunday, Blanche was asked point blank by Stephanopoulos whether there “will be more releases,” a question Blanche initially dodged, and instead spoke to concerns from Epstein victims who say they were unlawfully identified in the DOJ’s Friday release.
“We took great pains as I explained on Friday to make sure that we protected victims. We are talking about a review of 3.5 million pieces of paper that were released on Friday,” Blanche said.
“Every time we hear from a victim or their lawyer that they believe that their name was not properly redacted, we immediately rectify that. And the numbers we're talking about? Just so the American people understand, we're talking about 0.001% of all the materials.”
Stephanopoulos pressed Blanche again on whether the DOJ planned to release any more Epstein files, to which Blanche appeared to suggest that the agency wouldn’t, outside a “small number of documents.”
“We have released... there are a small number of documents that we're waiting for a judge to say we're allowed to release because of a protective order, but there are... this, this review is over!” Blanche said. “I mean, we reviewed over six million pieces of paper, thousands of videos, tens of thousands of images, which is what the statute required us to do!”
After the DOJ’s Friday dump of Epstein files, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) slammed the DOJ for its incomplete release of files.
“They say they collected 6 million pages, but they’re only releasing 3 million,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Friday. “What happened to the other three million?”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, also demanded answers Friday as to why the DOJ had withheld millions of Epstein files.
To the DOJ’s critics, Blanche lashed out at them for being “quick to complain.”
“You know it's interesting; leadership on the hill, Congressman Massie, Sen. Schumer are quick to complain,” Blanche said. “There is no way they have spent any time looking at the materials we produced because I know the materials we produced, we produced them on Friday. By Saturday, they're already complaining about what we did.”