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The Department of Justice could abruptly be forced to divulge secrets about Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s handling of the Epstein files.<\/p>
American Oversight<\/a>, a nonpartisan watchdog, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DOJ on Monday after the agency denied an expedited release of records tied to Blanche’s oversight of Epstein.<\/p> The suit demands the records by July 14 \u2014 one day before Blanche faces the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing as the nation’s next attorney general.<\/p> Former Attorney General Pam Bondi told House investigators<\/a> she “delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche” \u2014 placing him in charge of the review of the Epstein files.<\/p> The DOJ missed its legal deadline to release the files. When they came, the survivors’ names were exposed while the powerful men’s names stayed hidden.<\/p> Attorneys for survivors called it what may be the single most egregious violation<\/a> of victim privacy “in one day in United States history.” A Wall Street Journal review found at least 43 victims’ full names unredacted \u2014 more than two dozen were minors when abused.<\/p> “If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours,” Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat speaking from the House floor<\/a>, said, “imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files.” Khanna named the men there rather than to reporters \u2014 House members cannot be sued for what they say on the floor.<\/p> Blanche admitted before a Senate panel<\/a> last month that the DOJ “failed” in its rollout of the files.<\/p> Already, 19 Epstein survivors have come out against his nomination, calling it in a statement obtained by CNN<\/a> “failing upward, plain and simple.”<\/p>