U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche applauds President Donald Trump's remarks at David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence in Garden City, New York, U.S., August 14, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
An expert flagged a staggering irony that Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Department of Justice appear to be using in their scheme to "cover up anybody" mentioned in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Katie Phang, a journalist who sued the DOJ over its redactions in the Epstein files, discussed the latest developments in her lawsuit on a new episode of the politics podcast, "The Breakdown," with host Allison Gill. She said the judge was unhappy with the DOJ's move to send an uninformed attorney to the latest hearing, and she also highlighted an ironic aspect of the DOJ's position in a recent order.
Recently, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction against the DOJ over its Epstein files redactions, which Phang explained is a legal way to get something back to the norm. However, this presents a serious legal problem for the court because, Phang argued, the DOJ's norm in this case has been to mishandle the files.
Phang said Sullivan seemed to pick up on it in his response.
"The irony is that the judge in this case, the purpose of his injunction being entered was to comply with the law," Phang said. "So, he was saying, 'I want to stop your non-compliance by ordering you to do this.'"
Phang also noted that Sullivan has "accelerated from zero to 100" concerning non-compliance from Blanche and the DOJ. One outstanding issue that impacts the case is whether the DOJ can continue to claim the Privacy Act prevents it from revealing the identity of anyone who self-identifies as a victim, a claim that Phang said it is using to shield some of Epstein's associates.
"You really have to ask yourself, 'Why draw such broad parameters?'" Phang asked. "It's almost like they've created more work for themselves, but in reality, it just gave them a shield to be able to hide behind to not again investigate leads and/or prosecute on the face of these documents, and stuff that's even unredacted. There's enough there for at least some FBI investigation into various people."
All of this has become much more problematic after Blanche was confirmed as the attorney general, Gill noted.
"If you've got an attorney general who's allowing people to self-identify as victims and you're not considering anything other than their self-identification and redacting them just because they say so, and you're also redacting emails for the Privacy Act, between those two things, you can cover up anybody's name in the world," Gill said.