Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a room of Epstein survivors who had testified for decades that he was powerless to act, insisting, "I'm just the attorney general."
The meeting happened Thursday at Justice Department headquarters, according to MS NOW, which reconstructed it through one attendee and a representative for other survivors, both speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
It occurred only because Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) had demanded it, making a sit-down with survivors his condition for a confirmation vote expected July 30.
"The FBI has the power to open investigations, not me," Blanche told the group during Thursday's meeting, according to MS NOW.
"I'm just the attorney general," he added. "I don't expect that I have to commit to anything."
"What do you need from us to help you open an investigation?" asked Sky Roberts, brother of the late Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre.
"I need testimony and evidence," Blanche replied, "stunning the room," according to MS NOW's Lisa Rubin.
"He was standing in a room full of people who have given testimony over many decades," the representative pointed out.
Blanche also claimed there was "very little corroboration" for the charges against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted co-conspirator, an assertion the attendee called "patently false." Four women testified against Maxwell at her 2021 trial, and one of them, Annie Farmer, was reportedly in the room.
Farmer, who testified at that trial, said afterward that she found Blanche "abrasive, condescending," in a statement reported by ABC News. "By passing the buck once again, he is leaving survivors trapped in the same endless loop of searching for answers and receiving none," she said.
Blanche had found time for Maxwell before. He spent roughly 9 hours over two days interviewing her in July 2025, HuffPost reported, a point Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) raised during Wednesday's hearing.
"I was stunned earlier by your conversation with one of my colleagues that you wouldn't even commit to meeting with the survivors, but you did meet with Ghislaine Maxwell," Booker told Blanche.
Blanche called Thursday's meeting "productive," saying afterward the purpose "was just to listen," per ABC News.
"That was not a meeting, that was a performance," the survivors' representative said.