The Department of Justice has released three million more pages of documents related to the Epstein Files on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced at a press conference.
While a further three million pages won’t be published as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Deputy AG explained that any applied redactions are due to personally identifying information of victims, medical files that would constitute invasion of privacy, depictions of child pornography or anything that would jeopardize an active federal investigation. Additionally, all women have been removed from pertinent images and videos, with the exception of Ghislaine Maxwell.
“Although the Act allows for withholding for items necessary to keep secret in the interest of national security or foreign policy, no files are being withheld or redacted on that basis,” Blanche said, later questioning: “‘Because we didn’t review the six-plus million pages within 30 days, somehow the Attorney General doesn’t care about victims or is further doing damage to victims because of that?’ Exactly the opposite is true.”
“There was this mantra out there that, ‘Oh, you know, the Department of Justice is supposed to protect Donald J. Trump,’ and that’s not true. That was never the case. We are always concerned about the victims,” he added. “When we said that we were not legally allowed to release documents, that’s a fact and remains true today. With the Act’s passage, we are able now and directed to release documents, which is what we are doing, so hopefully, some of those frustrations are now eased.”
Blanche further insisted The White House had no oversight of the DOJ’s review.
“There are some select members of Congress and some in the public eye, including those most critical of our efforts at full transparency under the Act, who remain silent as to all the work that we have done and continue to do every day in this space, while quickly pointing a finger at the Attorney General or this department,” he stated. “Because we were careful in our review of millions of pages of documents over the past two months, the Attorney General, the director of the FBI, and our partners throughout this administration work hard every single day to protect the most vulnerable among us.”
“With a production of this magnitude, mistakes are inevitable,” Blanche continued. “We, of course, want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made, so the department has established an email and inbox for victims to reach us directly to correct redactions and any concerns, when appropriate.”
The Deputy AG was notably incredulous towards reporters’ questions as the press conference went on, ultimately dodging inquiries related to Don Lemon and Tulsi Gabbard, though he did confirm the DOJ has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting death of Alex Pretti.
This dump of half of the six million Epstein Files comes more than a month after the government’s legally mandated Dec. 19 deadline. Blanche also noted new identities of men in power previously not tied to the documents will not be found.
