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{"id":25887,"date":"2026-07-15T14:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/todd-blanche-says-he-cant-meet-directly-with-epstein-victims\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:32:19","slug":"todd-blanche-says-he-cant-meet-directly-with-epstein-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/todd-blanche-says-he-cant-meet-directly-with-epstein-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Blanche says he can&#8217;t meet directly with Epstein victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Todd Blanche fended off questions about his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files at his confirmation hearing Wednesday morning, telling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that, \u201cwhen it comes to victims of his horrible man, we will never, never not talk to victims.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But pressed by the top Democrat Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, to meet with 10 victims present in the hearing room, Blanche suggested he is personally prohibited from meeting directly with them and instead offered to have them meet with one of his deputies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have lawyers, as you know. I\u2019m prohibited from meeting directly with them,\u201d Blanche said. \u201cI have met with counsel for survivors, as have many people in the Department of Justice. But if they are represented by counsel, we will work with their counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Durbin replied: \u201cI think you ought to be in the room because you ought to hear this. You have a singular responsibility for these files.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) handed Blanche an opportunity to defend his work overseeing the disclosure of the files. Blanche told the committee that, \u201cif we learn today, if we learn next week, if we learn next month that there\u2019s an individual that we can investigate, indict and prosecute out of the Epstein files, you better believe it we will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since disclosure of millions of files earlier this year, however, the Justice Department hasn\u2019t prosecuted anyone in connection with Epstein. Though Trump ordered an investigation into Democrats linked to Epstein, the Manhattan U.S. attorney\u2019s office has taken no steps to suggest that the probe is active.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Todd Blanche fended off questions about his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files at his confirmation hearing Wednesday morning, telling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that, \u201cwhen it comes to victims of his horrible man, we will never, never not talk to victims.\u201d But pressed by the top Democrat Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}