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DoJ releasing 3m more Epstein files
The justice department is releasing more than 3m pages from its Jeffrey Epstein files, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche announced this morning.
Blanche said they include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to Epstein.
Blanche added that the images included lots of commercial pornography and images seized from Epstein’s devices.
We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
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Blanche tells reporters:
There’s this built in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case.
I don’t know whether there are men out there that abused these women. If we learn about information and evidence that that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will. But I don’t think that the public or you all are going to uncover men within the Epstein files that abuse women.
DoJ 'did not protect' Trump when reviewing Epstein files, Blanche insists
Blanche insists that no men, including Trump, were protected in the release of the Epstein files.
I can assure that we complied with the statute, we complied with the act. We did not protect President Trump. We didn’t protect or not protect anybody, I think there’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. There’s nothing I can do about that.
Trump’s direction to the DoJ was to be “transparent” and “that’s exactly what we did”, Blanche says.
Asked about survivors that have “expressed frustration” at the DoJ’s process for releasing the files, Blanche responds: “Same here.”
If there’s frustration with quote, the entire process, same here.
“The victims of Epstein have gone through unspeakable pain,” he adds. He says that he hopes that the release of the files has been able to “bring closure” to the victims.
The deputy attorney general also said that no further files were due to be released.
Todd Blanche told reporters: “Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act.”
Blanche declined to comment on the arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon last night.
Do I have a ‘reaction’ to it? I don’t know what that means. Are you looking for me to do, jump up and down? No I don’t have a reaction to it, I don’t know that the charges are unsealed yet. So, no. I’m not going to comment on that.
Todd Blanche addressed mistakes made during the first release of Epstein files in December. People examining the files at the time discovered that some of the file redaction can be undone with Photoshop techniques, or by simply highlighting text to paste into a word processing file.
On Friday, Blanche said: “Mistakes are inevitable. We, of course, want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made. And so the department has established an email and inbox for victims to reach us directly to correct redactions and any concerns when appropriate.”
The justice department faced criticism for not releasing all the Epstein files as required by law.
After missing a 19 December deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the justice department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.
The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to 5.2 million, including duplicates, the department said.
On Friday, Blanche rejected any accusations that the DoJ was not taking child exploitation or trafficking seriously enough.
He said:
Just last year, the FBI located located over 2,700 victims of child exploitation. The Department of Justice found and terminated 3.8 million dark web pedophile accounts.
In August, we charged 11 defendants for extensive sex trafficking in Los Angeles of illegal immigrants and underage women. Last month, we charged five men who were engaged in a sadistic extortion extortion network of deranged young men abusing women.
Over the past, several months last summer and into the fall, we executed Operation Restore Justice, rescuing 205 child victims and arresting 293 offenders. I point this out because I take umbrage at the suggestion, which is totally false, that the attorney general or this department does not take child exploitation or sex trafficking seriously, or that we somehow do not want to protect victims. We do.
During his press conference on Friday morning, Todd Blanche addressed redactions made by the justice department.
He said: “We redacted every woman depicted in any image or video, with the exception of Miss [Ghislaine] Maxwell. We did not redact images of any man unless it was impossible to redact the woman without also redacting the man. To this end, though, and to ensure transparency, if any member of Congress wishes to review any portions of the responsive production in any unredacted form, they are welcome to make arrangements with the department to do so.”
The files, posted to the DoJ website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.
They were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was enacted after months of public and political pressure on the Trump administration.
DoJ releasing 3m more Epstein files
The justice department is releasing more than 3m pages from its Jeffrey Epstein files, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche announced this morning.
Blanche said they include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to Epstein.
Blanche added that the images included lots of commercial pornography and images seized from Epstein’s devices.
We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
DoJ releases more Epstein files today
Blanche announces that the DoJ is releasing more documents tied to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Deputy AG holds press conference on Epstein files
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche has said he will hold a news conference at 11am ET at the Department of Justice.
NBC News hears from two senior administration officials this will be related to the Epstein files. We’ll bring you all the latest once that gets under way.
Noem concedes she may have got her response to Pretti shooting wrong
Kristi Noem has conceded that she may have got some information wrong in her initial response to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents.
“We were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity last night, describing a “very chaotic” situation when the host asked if her responses had been “premature”. “We were using the best information we had at the time,” she said.
The DHS secretary has been facing calls to resign amid widespread and mounting outrage, even among some Republicans, over her response to the killing of Pretti during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis last weekend.
Shortly after his killing, Noem claimed without any evidence that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” that had been “brandishing a gun” at officers – a narrative directly contradicted by video footage of the incident.
Noem dodged questions from Hannity about why she believed the term “domestic terrorist” to describe Pretti and Renee Good, also killed by a federal officer earlier this month, was appropriate.
“Well, Sean, we’re continuing to gather information, and the FBI leading this investigation is important to make sure that we talk about both these situations appropriately,” she replied.
Asked about Democrats (and notably not the aforementioned Republicans) calling for her to go, Noem dismissed the “radicals” calling for her firing.
These radicals are attacking me, but I’m just doing my job. I’m following the law, enforcing the laws like President Trump promised he would do, to keep people safe in this country.
Jeremy Barr
The arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon has sparked outrage from former colleagues, first amendment advocates and members of Congress.
“This is outrageous and cannot stand. The First Amendment is under attack in America!” Lemon’s former CNN colleague Jim Acosta wrote in a post on X.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, called Lemon’s arrest “a naked attack on freedom of the press”.
“Lemon’s arrest under a bogus legal theory is a clear warning shot aimed at other journalists,” he said in a statement to the Guardian. “The unmistakable message is that journalists must tread cautiously because the government is looking for any way to target them.”
After weeks of federal insurgency, Minnesota fought back, and it seems Donald Trump has lost faith in the people running his ICE operation in the state. So where does this leave Trump’s ‘ICE patriots’? How do Republicans unite over immigration policies that kill Americans? And where does it leave the far-right agitators in Trump’s cabinet?
In the latest edition of our Politics Weekly America podcast, Jonathan Freedland speaks to George Conway, a founding member of the Lincoln Project, who is running for Congress, about what happens next.
Have a listen here:
