Guy in Charge of Releasing Epstein Files Says ‘I Don’t Understand What “Epstein Investigation” Means’

It’s been 47 days since Todd Blanche became acting attorney general, and clearly he’s already mastered the administration’s top maneuver when it comes to being questioned about the disgraced financier slash pedophile: sticking your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes, and pretending the world outside doesn’t exist. 

Appearing for the first time before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday, a hearing scheduled to ask him about the Justice Department’s 2027 budget, Blanche was asked by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) about whether the DOJ would be continuing to release, say, the alleged reams of Epstein files and details not yet released. He replied with some good ol’ political amnesia. 

“I want to go on to the Epstein investigation,” Merkley said. “Is it closed or open?“

“When you say, ‘the Epstein investigation,’ what are you referring to, Senator?” Blanche replied. 

Merkley continued, “Well, the FBI said last year, in July, that it had closed the Epstein investigation. So, I’m just using their words. Is it open or closed?”

“I don’t believe the FBI said that,” Blanche said. He added: “I guess I don’t understand what ‘Epstein investigation’ means.”

Uh… what? There’s clearly a lot to unpack here—but first and foremost, Blanche is lying wrong on both counts. It was in July that the FBI with the DOJ quietly released a memo saying they couldn’t find Epstein’s “client list”—despite Blanche’s predecessor, Pam Bondi, claiming such a file was “sitting on [her] desk” in February—and it’s pretty fucking difficult to believe Blanche is doing anything but playing dumb. 

Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law in November, the DOJ was meant to upload the Epstein files in full by Dec. 19—a deadline the department admitted that same day it would miss, though not before managing to drip-feed a smattering of heavily redacted documents. Over a month later, the DOJ released another three million pages—which were riddled with errors, and exposed the details and nude photos of several Epstein victims. In February, NPR reported that the DOJ was still to upload some documents—even though Blanche said the January dump was meant to “mark the end” of the files and last month, Blanche was sued for allegedly continuing to fail to upload the files in full. 

The DOJ’s mistakes in revealing multiple Epstein victims’ details was raised by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) during the hearing, and while Blanche never actually apologized, he admitted the DOJ never meant to “release a single victim’s name.” Then, he said the mistakes accounted for 0.0001% of the files. Uh. “We made mistakes and we owned up to them,” he said. Uh x2. Friendly reminder that what actually happened was Bondi was asked to apologize during a separate hearing, and dismissed the call as theatrics.

Speaking in a congressional hearing last week, a group of Epstein survivors also appeared for their first public congressional hearing, to which they criticized the DOJ’s shortcomings. “These documents hold disturbing, and yet incomplete accounts of my abuse,” one victim said. “And they were viewable not only by the entire world, but my child, my students, my students’ parents, my friends, my employers, my colleagues, my family. In public.” 

“Anytime we release a victim’s name that shouldn’t be released,” Blanche said to Murray, “We have failed as a Department of Justice.”

Murray replied, “Well, I still I haven’t heard the words I apologize.” Alas—an apology seems to be in the same place that the rest of the files are.