DOJ official plays down chance for charges from Epstein files release
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the newly released records connected to Jeffrey Epstein do not necessarily provide the kind of evidence prosecutors could use to bring new criminal charges. Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Blanche said the files include correspondence and “horrible photographs,” but that the presence of such materials does not by itself mean there is a case to prosecute.
Blanche said victims of Epstein’s sex abuse “want to be made whole,” adding that the Justice Department could not “just create evidence” or “just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.” He framed the issue as one of evidentiary sufficiency rather than the amount of information in the dump, saying: “There’s a lot of correspondence. There’s a lot of emails. There’s a lot of photographs. There’s a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or people around him,” before concluding, “But that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.”
The Justice Department’s position on whether Epstein-related material supported additional criminal investigations has remained steady since officials said over the summer that their review did not establish a basis for new investigations. In the Sunday interviews, Blanche pointed back to that earlier review and said it was still the department’s stance even as the documents and related records have renewed public scrutiny of Epstein’s connections to prominent figures.
The disclosure effort is unfolding under a Friday announcement from the Justice Department that it would release more than 3 million pages of documents, more than 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images. The department’s release is tied to a law intended to reveal most of the material it collected during long-running investigations into Epstein, according to the report of the Friday disclosure.
Blanche also addressed the scope of what the department already looked at. On ABC’s “This Week,” he said the Justice Department was waiting for a judge’s approval before it can release a “small number of documents,” but said, “when it comes to the department’s own scouring of documents, ‘this review is over.’” He added: “We reviewed over six million pieces of paper, thousands of videos, tens of thousands of images.”
The renewed attention on the released records has come amid questions about what Epstein’s associates may have known and how leads were handled in past inquiries. The AP reported that among the materials was a spreadsheet created last August that summarized calls made to the FBI’s National Threat Operation Center or to a hotline set up by prosecutors, containing a range of stories that officials said were uncorroborated, with notes at times indicating what follow-up—if any—was done.
Blanche told CNN that there were “a lot of people” named besides Trump in the files and said the FBI had fielded “hundreds of calls” about prominent individuals where the allegations were “quickly determined to not be credible.” The report described how some of Epstein’s personal email correspondence included discussions among others about Epstein’s sexual conduct, including in communications that spanned the period before and after Epstein served prison time for soliciting an underage prostitute.
The release has also produced political fallout overseas and in the United States, with officials responding to additional revelations in the newly disclosed records. In the United Kingdom, Lord Peter Mandelson announced his resignation from the governing Labour Party on Sunday after further revelations about his relationship with Epstein, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer suggested that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, should tell U.S. investigators what he knows. In Slovakia, a top official left his position after photos and emails revealed he had met Epstein in the years after Epstein was released from jail.
As lawmakers and advocates weigh the disclosure, House Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believed the Justice Department was complying with the law requiring disclosure. Rep. Ro Khanna, a co-sponsor of the law, said he did not believe the department had fully complied, arguing that some survivors were upset that some names had inadvertently appeared without redactions, while Blanche said the department has moved quickly each time it learned a victim’s name was not properly redacted and that such mistakes made up a tiny fraction of the overall materials.