The News
US Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the Department of Justice would support further inquiries into Jeffrey Epstein and support for victims, after telling Fox News a few weeks ago that the files “should not be a part of anything going forward.”
Asked at Semafor World Economy if he’d back public congressional hearings with victims of the late convicted sex offender, which Hill lawmakers and First Lady Melania Trump are pushing, he responded: “Of course.”
“We have said repeatedly from day one that if there’s any victim that wants to come forward and talk about what they know, whether it’s something that happened by Mr. Epstein, who’s dead, or another individual or individuals, that’s what the FBI does.”
Blanche denied saying previously that the Epstein matter should close. “I have never said we’re moving on. There’s a lot of people in this country that correctly feel that we did not get closure with Jeffrey Epstein,” he said. “I couldn’t agree with that more.”
When asked by Semafor’s Shelby Talcott about former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision in November to tap US Attorney Jay Clayton of New York “to investigate a number of prominent individuals’ ties to Epstein,” Blanche responded: “I don’t think that’s what she did.”
Blanche said he wasn’t aware of any live Epstein inquiries related to Clayton’s effort. “I don’t know of any ongoing investigations,” Blanche said.
The controversy around Epstein and his connections to political figures, including President Donald Trump and those in his orbit, has dogged the Trump administration. Bondi was ousted after Trump became frustrated with her for not aggressively targeting his political enemies amid the spiraling Epstein matter.
Blanche, who took the acting helm of the department after Bondi was fired, dismissed criticism against Trump for publicly pressuring the DOJ to investigate his political enemies and for breaking down the department’s independence from the executive branch, arguing it was Trump’s “right” to suggest targets.
“Certainly if the leader of the Free World learns about something or hears about something or wants us to focus on something, a certain area, that is, of course, what every Department of Justice has done…This idea that President Trump has some sort of outsized control because of things that he says, that that’s absolutely his right and his duty to do that,” Blanche said.
“I can’t think of a time when a president has picked a name out of thin air and said, ‘DOJ — investigate him or her,’” he added.
Know More
Blanche also talked up his department’s efforts to investigate health care fraud that have so far largely focused on blue states. The new division would be “staffed with hundreds of prosecutors,” he said.
“This is not limited to blue or red states,” he said. “What we’re doing is we’re saying that there are people out there that are just stealing from the government.”