Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that he takes responsibility for the Justice Department’s failure in releasing names of victims in the Epstein files, but said it did the best it could in a short timeline and is working to fix things.
Mr. Blanche, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee as he seeks the full attorney general’s job, said DOJ is ready to prosecute people associated with deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein if lawyers believe they can make a case.
“My heart breaks for every survivor, every victim of Mr. Epstein,” he said. “I would love to prosecute anybody that did any harm to these victims.”
Mr. Blanche also decried the new focus on the Epstein files under President Trump, who signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act and who Mr. Blanche said has been the most transparent president on the matter.
“For four years there wasn’t a peep about Jeffrey Epstein. The Biden administration did nothing to be transparent about Jeffrey Epstein. We have been extraordinarily transparent,” Mr. Blanche said.
Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, demanded that Mr. Blanche meet with 10 Epstein victims who were in the hearing room.
Mr. Blanche said the “right people” in his department would.
Nearly 3 million pages of the Epstein files have been released in response to court orders and the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Mr. Blanche said they collected 6 million pages to peruse, but much of that was beyond the scope of Epstein and the investigation.
As an example, he said, there was another case involving a different Epstein in the same federal district at the time. All of those documents were grabbed in the initial collection.
Mr. Blanche said deciding on redactions was tricky at times because some victims were also involved in the conduct Epstein was accused of.
But he said redaction mistakes were made 1% of the time, and they were fixed immediately.
“I take responsibility,” he said.
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