Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department just ran into a wall in the fight to slow-walk a court-ordered dig through the Epstein files.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Wednesday denied the government's request to pause a lower court order requiring the department to start reviewing foreign-language documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judges Cornelia Pillard and Florence Pan issued the unsigned order.
"The government has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal," the panel wrote. The decision is the latest development in a lawsuit filed against Blanche by lawyer and journalist Katie Phang to release more unredacted Epstein files.
The judges found the DOJ "failed to show that it is irreparably harmed by merely initiating review" of the records. And to the extent the government objected to turning over documents before the case is decided, the panel said "production does not appear to be imminent."
The court also brushed aside any claimed harm from releasing records the DOJ doesn't actually dispute it must hand over. Citing a brief by Phang, the judges noted that in that scenario the government would "only produce documents that" it "concludes must be disclosed by law."
If the DOJ decides after its review to redact or withhold some foreign-language records, Phang has acknowledged those disputes would head back to court. "The possibility of disclosure only after 'further litigation' is not present irreparable harm," the panel wrote.
The judges held off on the DOJ's separate motion to dismiss, sending it to the merits panel that will hear the consolidated appeals. Both sides were told to argue those issues in their briefs instead of simply pointing back to earlier arguments.
Phang sued in April, claiming the DOJ was flouting the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by Congress last year. In June, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Blanche's failure to answer Phang's claims amounted to an admission that the DOJ was breaking the law, Politico reported.
Sullivan granted a preliminary injunction that ordered the DOJ to either lift a range of redactions or better justify them. Among the covered material were foreign-language records the DOJ said its team couldn't translate or screen for redactions, along with FBI notes from interviews with a woman who alleged Epstein introduced her to Trump when she was about 13 and that Trump then assaulted her. The DOJ has said the files contain false claims about Trump.