“Bring it on” — Top Justice Department official responds to impeachment threat over Epstein files
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has been defiant about the potential legal consequences of failing to fully disclose Justice Department records related to late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
In a Sunday interview with NBC Meet the Press with Kristen Welkerhe was asked about comments from members of Congress exploring possible impeachment or contempt charges and whether he took the threats seriously.
“Not even a little bit. Go ahead,” Blanche replied. “We are doing everything we are supposed to do to comply with this law.”
The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the Trump administration to release all Epstein files by Friday, with few exceptions, to protect victims’ information.
But the released documents represent only a small fraction of the total, and many of them are heavily redacted.
That led Rep. Ro Khanna, one of the leaders behind the mostly bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, to warn that the Justice Department was not following the law.
Rep. Thomas Massie, who also led the push for the release of the Epstein files, said in a social media post that a future Justice Department could convict Attorney General Pam Bondi and others, adding, “THEY ARE AFFECTING THE LAW.”
On Friday, Khanna said he and Massie had already started working on drafting articles of impeachment and inherent contempt against Bondi, although they had not yet decided whether to move forward.
“Impeachment is a political decision and is there support in the House of Representatives? I mean, Massie and I are not going to do something just to show it,” Khanna told CNN.
On Sunday, Blanche said members of Congress criticizing the DOJ’s efforts “have no idea what they’re talking about,” explaining that there are about a million pages of documents and that “almost all of them contain victim information” that needs to be protected.
He also argued that releasing the Epstein files on a rolling basis over a few weeks instead of just once before Friday’s deadline was still consistent with the law passed by Congress.
“There is a well-established law, as they should know, that in a case like this where we are required to file within a certain time frame, but also comply with other laws like redaction, that far outweighs … a certain time frame that the law provides,” Blanche said.
