Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche indicated Sunday that the Justice Department is open to charging more people associated with the late notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein if the public unearths damning facts from the files that the feds previously missed.
“The way that we start many of our federal cases is because we hear tips from civilians or from others in the community,” Blanche told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday when asked.
On Friday, the Justice Department publicly divulged some 3 million pages worth of files on Epstein, including a bevy of fake images, documents, and other content to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act.
The DOJ’s disclosure of the Epstein files now totals roughly 3.5 million pages, including prior releases.
“We had reviewed the files, the ‘Epstein Files,’ and there was nothing in there that allowed us to prosecute anybody,” Blanche stressed. “We then released over 3.5 million pieces of paper, which the entire world can look at now and see if we got it wrong.”
Blanche, the No. 2 official at the DOJ, underscored that while some of the content is “horrible,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that the feds will have sufficient evidence to slap charges against people engaged in disturbing behavior.
“There’s a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or by people around him, but that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody,” Blanche caveated.
“The victims want to be made whole. And we want that,” he continued. “The government wants that more than anything. But that doesn’t mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.”
The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files material that pertains to ongoing investigations and has redacted information that can be used to identify some of the victims.
Here is the latest on Jeffrey Epstein documents released by DOJ:
Blanche was coy about whether the feds are planning to bring forward any other charges related to Epstein’s associates, citing DOJ policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations.
The deputy AG, who previously served as President Trump’s defense attorney, did an interview with Epstein’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, that spanned two days last summer.
The DOJ’s No. 2 also hit back against the focus on a summary compiled last August of salacious accusations against Trump, contending that some are pushing a “narrative that is completely false” by harping on that list, which includes unverified material or material otherwise deemed not credible.
During his wide-ranging interview on CNN, Blanche also defended the arrest of pundit Don Lemon last week for joining a mob of anti-ICE protesters that stormed a church in Minneapolis last month. Lemon claimed he was there in a journalistic capacity.
“The indictment lays out and what you didn’t read on the air, there’s a lot of things that Mr. Lemon did that you would never do as a journalist,” Blanche argued when pressed about Lemon’s defense.
“You would never do that.”
Blanche also downplayed the fact that a judge opposed a bid to prosecute Lemon, stressing that only a “grand jury can bring forth an indictment,” and one convened in Minnesota agreed to do so.
