Top Justice Department official denies any effort to remove mentions of President Trump in Epstein files

The No. 2 Justice Department official told ABC News in an interview Friday that there has been “no effort” to remove President Donald Trump’s name from the release of files stemming from federal investigations into convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked in an interview Friday by ABC News Supreme Court correspondent Pierre Thomas whether all documents mentioning Trump will be released as the government continues its investigation.Registration of hundreds of thousands of files. in the coming weeks.

“Assuming it’s consistent with the law, yes,” Blanche said. “So there is no effort to hide anything because Donald J. Trump’s name or anyone else’s name is there, bill clintonthe name of, Reid HoffmanThe name. “There’s no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that and that’s why, but again, we’re not redacting the names of famous men and women associated with Epstein.”

When pressed directly about whether there has been any order to the Department of Justice staff To redact materials involving Trump, Blanche rejected any such suggestions and accused Democratic lawmakers of using selective disclosures of Epstein’s estate to portray Trump in a negative light.

“President Trump has certainly said from the beginning that he expects all files that can be released to be released and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Blanche said.

Blanche attended the interview just hours before the department released its first batch of thousands of files, which contained little information related to Trump and instead included images of former President Bill Clinton without context, which were highlighted on social media by Justice Department and White House officials.

A Clinton spokesman accused the department of selectively releasing the photos in a statement and denied that they showed any wrongdoing on the part of the former president.

“The White House has not been hiding these files for months only to get rid of them on a Friday night just to protect Bill Clinton,” Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said Friday. “They can post as many grainy 20+ year old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton.”

“Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats,” the spokesperson said.

In the ABC News interview, Blanche also sought to defend the department’s decision not to release all of its files subject to disclosure. low the bill signed into law by Trump, which gave the Justice Department 30 days to release its entire Epstein investigation files.

“I didn’t say not all the files will be released, I said not all the files will be released today,” Blanche said when asked about an interview she gave Friday to Fox News. “And the law is very specific that the Department of Justice must ensure that we protect victims. And as recently as Wednesday, we learned of names of additional victims, so we have received over 1,200 names of victims and their family members since we began this process. And so there is an established precedent that in a situation like this, where it is essentially impossible for us to comply with the law today, we must comply with the law, consistent with the law.”

When asked whether the public should trust Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal defense attorney, to act in the public interest on Trump, Blanche said the American people should scrutinize what the department ultimately releases.

“Their confidence should be in the fact that for decades, many people have been trying to falsely go after President Trump, and when it comes to the Epstein saga, it’s the exact same story.”

Blanche added that the process for drafting the documents “was not the Attorney General’s [Pam] Bondi, [FBI] Patel Director Todd Blanche reviews and codes millions of documents and says, “yes, no, yes, no.” You have multiples, dozens and dozens of the most trained lawyers in the Department of Justice working for the National Security Division. “These are career attorneys involved in this process.”

Blanche defends the transfer to prison of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell

In the interview, Blanche also defended the department’s controversial decision over the summer to transfer convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower-security prison just days after she was seated. for an interview with her for two days in florida.

In an interview published by Vanity Fair earlier this week, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles denied that Trump was involved in the decision and said she disapproved of Maxwell’s move.

While Blanche said she was “not allowed” to discuss the safety of individual inmates, she said Maxwell faced “multiple threats” that warranted her being moved to a separate low-security facility in Texas.

“At the time she was moved, there were multiple threats to her life, and as happens all the time in the Bureau of Prisons when that happens, one of the options available to the warden and the security system within the Bureau of Prisons is to move the inmate,” Blanche said. “She has not been released. She is in federal prison.”

Blanche further denied that Maxwell was receiving any preferential treatment at the new facility, despite the whistleblowers’ recent revelations. released by congressional Democrats.

Blanche says investigations into Comey and James will continue

ABC News separately asked Blanche whether the department plans to continue prosecutions against two of Trump’s top political targets, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, after a federal judge dismissed their charges in November on the basis that a Trump-installed prosecutor was illegally appointed.

Two separate federal grand juries in the last two weeks have He rejected the department’s efforts. to re-indict James on mortgage fraud charges and an independent federal judge in Washington, D.C., has restricted prosecutors from accessing key evidence in their Comey investigation.

Blanche confirmed that the department’s investigation into Comey “continues” and said it is “not a mystery” that the Justice Department still plans to bring charges against him and rejected any suggestion that prosecutors were “vindictive.”

James and Comey have denied wrongdoing.

When asked about the interview that Wiles, the White House chief of staff, gave to Vanity Fair in which she candidly appeared to admit that the Justice Department’s prosecution of James was “retribution,” Blanche again defended the department’s actions.

“Because we are analyzing the evidence, we are investigating it, investigating the cases. We have law enforcement officers, career law enforcement officers, who do the investigations. are presented to a grand jury in the normal course,” Blanche said.

ABC News previously reported that career prosecutors in the James and Comey investigations recommended prosecutors do not chase Any of the accusations were based on what they considered a lack of sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.