All posts tagged "katie phang"

'Huge problem': Katie Phang floored as Epstein pal tries to dodge subpoena

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang unloaded on billionaire Leon Black after the Jeffrey Epstein associate sued Congress rather than testify.

On Thursday, Black filed a 28-page complaint in federal court in Washington just hours before he was due back before the House Oversight Committee for a "continuation of his questioning," Phang explained.

In a Thursday episode of her podcast, Phang said the "billionaire buddy of Jeffrey Epstein" was supposed to "roll up today" and instead ran to court to block two subpoenas that House Oversight Chair James Comer served on him in June.

Those subpoenas followed Black's June appearance, when Phang said he "walked out maybe an hour into his voluntary transcribed interview" after "stonewalling and refusing to answer questions" about non-disclosure agreements.

Phang argued that Black's no-show was damaging no matter how the legal fight shakes out.

"The failure for Leon Black to appear today is a huge problem for him," Phang said. "Putting aside the legalities of it, the optics are horrific."

She added that Black "just furthers the public's belief that he is trying to hide from the people his involvement with not only Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, but also others."

In the lawsuit Black filed against Congress, he asked the court to declare the subpoenas invalid, according to Phang. Black argued they "exceed House oversight's delegated authority" and seek "private information that bears no legitimate connection to its legislative purpose," Phang explained.

"Congress pursuing Mr. Black for purely political gain is not a legitimate end of congressional investigations," his complaint argued, according to Phang. Rep. Robert Garcia, the lead Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called for immediate consequences, she noted.

"By refusing to testify today, Leon Black is now defying two congressional subpoenas," Garcia said, per Phang. "Black gave Jeffrey Epstein over $180 million over six years. He funded Epstein's abuse and trafficking of women."

Phang, who's suing Attorney General Todd Blanche for the release of more unredacted Epstein files, made it clear where she landed on Black's court gambit.

"It's nice, huh? To have money and to have high-powered, expensive lawyers to run to federal court to be able to do this for you," Phang said. "Must be nice, huh?"

She demanded, "Stop the insanity, Leon Black."

Katie Phang taunts Todd Blanche after putting 'foot on his neck' in Epstein fight

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang taunted Attorney General Todd Blanche in a video reacting to a filing in her lawsuit to release more Epstein files.

In a Wednesday episode of her podcast, Phang broke down the reply her team filed that morning in her suit against Blanche under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. She told her viewers that she plans to keep the pressure on Blanche after her filing called him out for stalling the court and demanded he release damning FBI notes within five days.

"I have to keep my foot on the neck of Attorney General Todd Blanche," Phang said. "That's just the way things have to go these days."

In her seven-page filing, Phang's lawyers pressed U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to order Blanche to hand over unredacted, handwritten FBI notes. One of the notes details accusations of President Donald Trump sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl who alleged that Epstein introduced her to Trump in 1984, all of which Trump denies and remain uncorroborated, according to Phang and other reports. Phang added that she's also demanding a written justification for every redaction while calling out Blanche's "dumb" excuses.

"In court, the lawyer for Todd Blanche says that the handwritten notes are duplicative," Phang said. "But even if they were duplicative, there's still no exception in the Epstein Files Transparency Act that would allow Todd Blanche to withhold production of these handwritten FBI notes."

She accused Blanche of conflating two sections of the statute to dodge the redaction-log requirement. She dismissed his written response as a "half-a—" explanation and insisted the court would not be fooled.

"You can't snow the court. The court's too smart," Phang said. "He's trying to pull a fast one on the court, which is unethical and terrible, but he's also trying to confuse people."

Phang said the preliminary injunction Sullivan granted in June has already pried material loose from the Department of Justice and left Blanche scrambling to keep his excuses straight.

"It has exposed them for their cover-up, for their concealment, for their violations of the law," Phang said. "It has made them scramble to try to stay consistent on excuses, and they get revealed each and every step of the way."

She described the lawsuit against Blanche as "a labor of love" and told her viewers, "I have an obligation to be truthful. I have no obligation to be neutral."

'Shocking': New details of Trump DOJ's 'crazy two hours' fumbling Epstein case revealed

A lawyer suing the Department of Justice described the "crazy two hours" that could spill "millions" of Epstein files.

During an interview on the podcast "Legal AF," Public Integrity Project lawyer Brendan Ballou spoke about the DOJ's lawyer trying to defend redactions of the Epstein files against a lawsuit brought by lawyer and journalist Katie Phang.

"It was a shocking sort of experience for me, having been at the Department of Justice, to see the argument that they were making," Ballou said. "They didn't seem to have a plan for the hearing or for what the judge's questions were going to be, sort of basic questions about the case."

Phang is suing Attorney General Todd Blanche for allegedly illegal redactions of the Epstein files. She argued that the redactions violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The DOJ sent Andrew Block in alone to a show-cause hearing. "It was a pretty crazy two hours," according to Ballou, who was in the courtroom. It was a "close-shoelace" disaster with "long periods of silence," no plan, and no attempt to argue that the DOJ was actually complying.

"At no point did they argue that they were complying with the law, which I thought was pretty shocking," Ballou said. "You would think you would want to at least nominally say, 'Look, judge, we are actually following the law here.'"

Instead, the DOJ's posture was variations on "we've reinterpreted the orders so we don't have to follow them," according to Ballou. Judge Emmet Sullivan suggested he could hold Block in contempt with a "half-hour long description of having previously found the Department in contempt," Ballou said.

"He's basically bringing up the specter of contempt, saying, 'It's a promise, not a threat,'" Ballou said. "I think he really made clear the profound professional consequences that follow you if you are, in fact, held in contempt."

Sullivan also only asked Phang's side to draft a proposed order releasing Epstein files, which Ballou found telling. He framed the current fight as a "small subset," while the larger war is millions of pages he says can't be trusted as reviewed and redacted honestly or completely.

"Ultimately, we're talking about millions of documents that need to be properly reviewed that we really can't trust the Department of Justice did a good job on," Ballou said. "Every time the Department of Justice evades, fails to comply, fails to be completely transparent, it's going to make it a lot easier for us to get that ultimate remedy. Absolutely."

Melania Trump clobbered by 'bombshell' threat as Epstein investigators close in: expert

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang warned that Melania Trump tops the subpoena list for lawmakers planning an Epstein probe.

Phang is leading a lawsuit against Attorney General Todd Blanche to hold the Trump administration accountable for its obligation to release certain Epstein records by law. On a Friday podcast episode she described in the title as a "bombshell," Phang spoke with Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) about his pledge to carry out an investigation of Epstein and uncover more about the deceased sex criminal after the midterms.

Garcia and Phang predicted that Democrats would retake the House after the midterms, along with the House Oversight Committee. As the ranking Democrat on the committee, Garcia expects to find himself in a position to start dishing out subpoenas, and Phang noted, "At the top of that list is a woman by the name of Melania Trump."

Garcia explained, "Republicans have set a precedent that we can subpoena and talk to first ladies and former first ladies and family members of presidents" by going after Hunter Biden and the Clintons. He plans to leverage that precedent and go after Melania to discover what she knows about Epstein.

"I mean, does anyone here across the country think that the first lady doesn't have additional information?" Garcia said. Melania Trump and Epstein were photographed together with Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000.

Phang noted Melania's "bizarre press conference" in April 2026, where she denied ever being his friend or victim while calling on Congress to let survivors testify at public hearings. Garcia said that the speech made it clear she wants the investigation to move forward.

"She made that clear, and so we're very interested," Garcia said. "There's no question that we want to talk to the first lady. Melania clearly has information."

Garcia added, "There's a lot of speculation about who knew who when, who was introduced to who, when and how, and so I think those are valid questions," and evoked Melania's own words to call on her to tell the truth.

"If Melania Trump wants real justice for the survivors, then she would work with us to try to get the truth," Garcia said.

'Dubious' new White House counsel pick reveals Trump's real scheme: attorney

President Donald Trump's incoming White House counsel reveals the role that the president's top lawyers are meant to have, a legal analyst explained.

On a Tuesday episode of her podcast, attorney and journalist Katie Phang unloaded on Will Scharf, who's currently serving as staff secretary but is set to take over as the White House counsel on September 1. She described Scharf as having "had a history of being a little bit dubious" as Trump's former personal lawyer.

"The only qualification you need is not competency. It is not loyalty to the United States Constitution," Phang said. "It's the capacity to only kiss one person's a—, and that is convicted felon, Donald Trump."

He's the latest Trump personal lawyer to be awarded a job close to the president, following the confirmation of Attorney General Todd Blanche. Phang noted that Emil Bove, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, and Solicitor General John Sauer were also in Trump's personal legal orbit before they "garnered some cushy positions."

Scharf's new job as Trump's White House counsel will involve "running a team of lawyers and advisers who are going to be telling felon Trump whether he is running afoul of the law or not," according to Phang.

"And of course, we all laugh and chuckle when we hear that because it is a day ending in Y when felon Trump runs afoul of the law," Phang explained. "The dangers here with constantly having personal lawyers as your attorney general, as federal appellate judges, as your White House counsel, as your solicitor general...they're going to sit there and scheme and strategize a way to try and end-run the law."

She pointed out that the Trump administration's record of winning and losing cases in court is "pretty abysmal," but the real damage comes with "the havoc they wreak along the way. It is the destruction of values, norms, rule of law, and institutions."

After all that destruction, Phang warned, "It's the rebuild that we're left with, that we're stuck with when these a— are out of power."

Todd Blanche's confession he 'blew' Epstein case floors legal expert: 'Makes you wonder'

A legal expert slammed Todd Blanche's court filing that confessed he missed a deadline and 'messed up' as she sued him.

In a recent episode of her podcast, lawyer and journalist Katie Phang described recent developments with her case against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who's inching closer to securing the permanent attorney general role. Blanche admitted in a recent court filing that he missed a deadline to answer a lawsuit over redactions in the Epstein files, but blamed it on "excusable neglect," Phang explained.

"There, my friends, is the confession by Todd Blanche that he blew the deadline, 'Excusable neglect,'" Phang said. "Well, isn't that an admission that you messed up, but you have a quote, 'excusable,' reason why you did?"

Phang is suing Blanche for more unredacted Epstein files or an explanation of why the Department of Justice redacted what it did. She alleges the DOJ wrongly redacted the Epstein files and violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Blanche missed a June 29 deadline to answer Phang's complaint. Even though he had 60 days to respond, he filed nothing and never asked for an extension, but his latest filing is a motion to erase the missed deadline and give him more time to respond.

However, the filing is "more confessions by Todd Blanche that he blew the deadline," Phang said, while seeing it as a reason to doubt Blanche's suitability to be attorney general.

"Do you think somebody like that should be the Attorney General of the United States? If he can't actually handle a basic deadline like responding to a lawsuit?" Phang said. "Makes you wonder how he can adequately and competently represent the people of the United States of America?"

Phang called out parts of the filing that described the blown deadline as "regrettable" and "not intentional," saying what really happened is, "You're being caught with your pants down, and now you're scrambling because you're having a really big oh sh— moment."

'Biggest red flag' in unredacted Epstein files given away by Todd Blanche: legal expert

The journalist and lawyer suing Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spotted "the biggest red flag" after unredacted Epstein records were handed over.

In an episode of her podcast, Katie Phang discussed her case against Blanche that demands the release of the Epstein files with appropriate redactions. It marked the first time she's spoken about the case since the DOJ revealed that it handed over unredacted records from the Epstein files.

Judge Emmet Sullivan is reviewing the unredacted records privately and will decide what's worth releasing. However, in a court filing, the DOJ justified its redactions and mentioned an accidental redaction of Jeffrey Epstein's email address.

"Todd Blanche admitted in his filing yesterday that Jeffrey Epstein's email address was redacted. He calls it an inadvertent redaction, but it's been redacted and has since been lifted," Phang explained. "Now, you may not think that's a big deal, but I think it's a very, very, very big deal. And in fact, that is the biggest red flag that you could find from what has happened here."

The main argument in Phang's lawsuit is that the DOJ made improper redactions under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and she's demanding they either release the files or explain their redactions. The inadvertent redaction of Epstein's email address "shows that the way that the redactions were done here was wrong," Phang said.

"This wasn't some one-off mistake," Phang said. "We know for a fact that the Department of Justice released over and over again, hundreds and hundreds of times, the personal identifying information of several victims."

Phang explained that even though the DOJ "wants to say, 'Oops, sorry, we missed it,'" the release of victims' names but not Epstein's email address proves the "process was flawed. We know that it didn't work, and now we know that it also worked to protect the identity of Jeffrey Epstein, the main perpetrator of these crimes."

Trump DOJ hands unredacted Epstein records to judge

The Department of Justice handed a federal judge the unredacted Epstein records, which could lead to new revelations, per reports.

According to reporting by MeidasTouch News, the Trump DOJ confirmed on Thursday that it handed over unredacted records related to the Epstein files for private review.

The DOJ is turning over the records as it deals with a lawsuit brought by journalist and legal expert Katie Phang, who sued the Trump administration because of how it redacted the files.

According to court documents filed by the DOJ and shared by MeidasTouch News, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed off on the move. The documents submitted by the DOJ show unredacted parts of the Epstein files in an attempt to justify the Trump administration's redactions in the current version of the publicly available files.

In the filing, DOJ argues the unredacted records show its stated justifications support ten redactions that the court flagged. The DOJ wrote that most of the disputed redactions conceal the identities of victims or potential victims, while others protect personal information and the identities of law enforcement personnel and an assistant U.S. attorney.

DOJ also acknowledged an "inadvertent" redaction of Epstein's own email address in one record and has since lifted that redaction.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan will review the documents. Sullivan had earlier this month ordered the DOJ to produce documents that support a series of redactions in the Epstein files.

MeidasTouch News noted that the records are being reviewed "in camera," which means privately by a judge instead of being placed on a public docket. The step allows Sullivan himself to examine what the government has redacted and decide whether the DOJ's explanations hold up, MeidasTouch News reported.

Online commentators hailed the move. Journalist Aaron Parnas noted in a post on X that the development is "one step closer to accountability."

Supreme Court revealed it's embarking on a 'galling' initiative to gut rights: expert

A legal expert is reacting to the "galling" signs of the "deeply flawed" Supreme Court's push to gut constitutional rights.

During an interview with liberal political commentator David Pakman, journalist and lawyer Katie Phang shared her thoughts on the current state of the Supreme Court. Pakman was particularly curious about Phang's thoughts on its decision to deny Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship.

"Birthright citizenship never should have been taken up by the Supreme Court in the first instance," Phang said. "Their willingness to take up that type of case shows that there's something deeply, deeply flawed about this current iteration of the Supreme Court of the United States."

She also spoke about the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Slaughter, a case dealing with whether the president can fire the heads of independent agencies without cause. Trump won that case, and Phang contrasted it with how Trump lost a case in which the Supreme Court let Lisa Cook remain a Federal Reserve governor for now.

Phang's determination was that the Fed was spared because it's more consequential to markets, but she also cautioned that right-wing groups like the Federalist Society and dark money megadonor Leonard Leo are lining up particular cases that take aim more broadly at civil rights.

"They have been making all these emergency applications to the Supreme Court at numbers that have never been seen before," Phang said. "They know that they have ripe, kind of for-the-picking justices that have been waiting, waiting in the wings for these types of cases to be teed up for them."

Phang warned that the current Supreme Court and conservative and right-wing groups have been "chipping away" at rights, and pointed to the "erosion of civil rights when it comes to voting" and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

"The fact that you have some justices that are like, 'Yeah, maybe we can flirt with this idea now of doing away with an amendment that guarantees birthright citizenship,' that is galling," Phang said. "Yet not surprising considering the kind of downward spiral we've seen coming."

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Trump DOJ stumbles in Epstein files case with 'embarrassing' excuse: legal expert

The Trump Justice Department stumbled in an Jeffrey Epstein files case with an "embarrassing" excuse flagged by a legal expert on Saturday.

In a recent episode of the Legal AF podcast, analyst Michael Popok discussed the DOJ's response to an injunction requiring it to translate foreign-language documents in the Epstein files. The injunction stems from journalist Katie Phang's lawsuit demanding translation and a published redaction log, which has seen early success, Popok noted.

"It's not like the World Cup. It's not like there's 48 different countries of languages," Popok said. "What is it? Four or five languages. We know who was involved in the Epstein scandal. Maybe French, maybe Italian, certainly English, not a foreign language, but you know the way the Brits speak."

Even though the DOJ responded to a judge's injunction "in the nick of time," it refused to translate parts of the Epstein files, saying reviewers "could not translate it on the fly," according to Popok.

"They could use an app, an AI app, that would do the initial cut of translation," Popok said. "It's embarrassing that they think they can get away with this."

Popok summed up the DOJ's response as "you're not getting it, judge. We're not translating it." However, Popok added that the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, "doesn't suffer fools" and predicted that he'll be "p----- off" with the DOJ's excuse for not complying with the injunction.

"You're gonna see it in his next order," Popok said. "Remember we're talking about Epstein survivors and sexual abuse victims, many of them who were girls at the time."

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