Blanche
and
Donald
Trump
(Photo
by
Brendan
McDermid-Pool/Getty
Images)
Todd
Blanche
wants
to
talk
about
the
White
House
ballroom.
Or
the
Southern
Poverty
Law
Center.
Or
how
to
transfer
taxpayer
dollars
into
Donald
Trump’s
personal
account.
But
he
definitely
does
NOT
want
to
talk
about
the
Epstein
files,
a
subject
of
inquiry
that
he’s
bent
over
backward
to
obfuscate,
frustrate,
and
affirmatively
conceal
from
production.
Faced
with
an
explicit
statutory
command
to
turn
over
the
Epstein
files
without
any
redactions
or
withholdings
designed
to
protect
the
men
involved,
Blanche
worked
tirelessly
to
keep
the
men
engaged
in
Epstein’s
sex
trafficking
operation
from
the
public
eye.
There’s
an
argument
that
his
willingness
to
go
in
front
of
cameras
and
say
that
the
Epstein
files
have
all
been
released
—
a
demonstrable
lie,
that
even
he
acknowledges
in
other
statements
—
and
that
the
topic
“should
not
be
a
part
of
anything
going
forward.”
It’s
almost
like
Blanche’s
boss
has
a
vested
interest
in
this
criminal
investigation
disappearing!
This
weekend,
journalist
Katie
Phang
filed
a
lawsuit
laying
out
Blanche’s
violations
of
the
Epstein
Transparency
Act,
styling
her
complaint
as
Administrative
Procedures
Act
and
ultra
vires
claims
that
Blanche
directed
the
Department
of
Justice
to
arbitrarily
and
improperly
act
in
direct
opposition
to
statute.
In
a
sense,
this
is
the
other
shoe
dropping.
The
authors
of
the
Epstein
Transparency
Act,
Thomas
Massie
and
Ro
Khanna,
tried
to
get
a
judge
to
recognize
the
DOJ’s
contemptuous
approach
to
the
Epstein
files
and
to
secure
an
independent
monitor
to
complete
the
orderly
release
of
the
remaining
documents,
but
Judge
Paul
Engelmayer
turned
away
the
request
as
outside
the
purview
of
the
Maxwell
criminal
case
he
oversees.
Still,
Judge
Engelmayer
explained
that
they
were
free
to
bring
a
new
lawsuit
to
seek
compliance.
Phang
just
did
it.
After
months
of
stonewalling,
public
pressure
overwhelmed
the
Trump
administration’s
effort
to
sweep
the
matter
under
the
rug
and
the
Transparency
Act
became
law.
The
Act
gave
DOJ
30
days
to
produce
documents.
The
full
production
was
due
December
19
and
the
DOJ…
did
not
comply.
Blanche
promised
“several
hundred
thousand”
more
“over
the
next
couple
weeks”
—
a
number,
the
complaint
dryly
notes,
that
“was
several
orders
of
magnitude”
higher
than
what
actually
came
out.
By
February
2,
Blanche
wrote
Congress
to
declare
that
“[t]oday’s
production
marks
the
Department’s
compliance
with
its
production
obligations
under
the
Act.”
It
did
not
mark
that.
Documents
could
be
withheld
in
only
five
enumerated
circumstances:
victim
PII,
child
sexual
abuse
material,
narrowly
tailored
and
temporary
withholding
to
protect
active
investigations,
images
of
injury
or
abuse,
and
properly
classified
national
security
material.
Critically, the
Act
explicitly
forbids
redactions
based
on “political
sensitivity,
or
because
of
the
embarrassment
or
reputational
harm”
to
government
officials,
public
figures,
or
foreign
dignitaries.
Congress
wrote
that
with
intent.
DOJ’s
response
was
to
redact
things
that
fall
into
none
of
the
permitted
categories
and
several
of
the
prohibited
ones
while
pumping
out
clearly
irrelevant
material
like
the
Above
the
Law
newsletter
written
after
Epstein’s
death.
The
complaint
catalogs
the
kind
of
redactions
that
DOJ
apparently
believes
are
statutorily
authorized.
The
identities
of
people
in
a
draft
indictment
who
allegedly
conspired
with
Epstein
“to
persuade,
induce,
and
entice
individuals
who
had
not
attained
the
age
of
18
years
to
engage
in
prostitution.”
The
identity
of
whoever
wrote
Epstein
in
2014
to
thank
him
for
“a
fun
night”
and
praise
his
“littlest
girl”
for
being
“a
little
naughty.”
The
identity
of
the
person
who
in
2017
told
Epstein,
“I
met
[REDACTED]
today.
She
is
like
Lolita
from
Nabokov,
femme
miniature.”
The
person
who
told
Epstein
in
2018
about
three
“very
good
young
poor”
girls.
And
—
because
apparently
the
limiting
principle
here
is
“anything
Trump’s
friends
might
find
awkward”
—
the
identity
of
whoever
Epstein
wrote
to
in
2009
saying,
“where
are
you?
are
you
ok
I
loved
the
torture
video.”
These
are,
as
the
complaint
correctly
notes,
names
of
potential
co-conspirators.
That’s
not
victim
PII,
CSAM,
or
national
security.
The
only
conceivable
hook
is
“active
federal
investigation,”
which
Blanche
himself
foreclosed
when
he
announced the
investigation
“is
over.”
Which,
as
an
aside,
was
an
amateurish
own
goal.
The
DOJ
has
a
lot
of
latitude
to
pretend
they’re
investigating
something.
They
only
needed
to
say
“we’re
taking
this
seriously
[wink,
wink]”
and
held
onto
a
colorable
excuse
for
years.
But
they
didn’t.
The
complaint
points
to
the
DOJ
failure
to
produce,
retracted,
or
improperly
redacted
multiple
categories
of
material
referencing
the
President,
including
the
accusation
from
a
woman
that
the
FBI
interviewed
four
times
who
said
Trump
forced
her
to
perform
oral
sex
when
she
was
a
minor,
a
document
describing
Epstein
introducing
a
13-year-old
girl
to
Trump
at
Mar-a-Lago
with
the
line
“this
is
a
good
one,
huh,”
and
an
email
in
which
Epstein
contradicted
Trump’s
later
public
claims
about
being
kicked
out
of
Mar-a-Lago.
Some
of
these
documents
were
produced
to
Maxwell’s
defense
team
during
her
prosecution.
They
appeared
briefly
on
DOJ’s
website
before
disappearing.
Sometimes
they
came
back.
Sometimes
they
didn’t.
Phang
and
her
attorneys
from
the
Public
Integrity
Project
argue
that
the
DOJ
has
a
“nondiscretionary
duty”
—
a
phrase
that
does
a
lot
of
work
in
APA
litigation
—
to
produce
the
materials.
The
two
big
questions
going
forward
are
standing
and
remedy.
On
standing,
Phang’s
contention
is
that
she’s
a
journalist
who
has
covered
the
Epstein
matter for
years
across
MSNBC,
her
YouTube
channel,
and
Substack,
and
the
complaint
maps
the
harm
with
the
kind
of
specificity
that
survives
a
12(b)(1)
motion:
she
can’t
report
on
documents
that
don’t
exist,
can’t
analyze
redactions
that
aren’t
explained,
can’t
assess
scope
when
DOJ
keeps
unringing
the
bell.
Whether
that’s
enough
informational
injury
will
be
the
first
real
fight.
But
whatever
happens,
Blanche
is
back
to
talking
about
the
Epstein
files,
the
one
topic
his
boss
never
wants
to
hear
about
again.
(Check
out
the
complaint
on
the
next
page…)
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
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if
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Joe
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