Acting AG Blanche has a decision to make on Epstein Files | Opinion
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will find himself in a triangle of trouble on Thursday.
Blanche, nominated as attorney general on June 8 by President Donald Trump, faces a deadline July 2 in federal court to publicly release a batch of secret files about Trump's old pal, the now-dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Blanche must know that Trump, whom he previously represented in criminal and civil cases, doesn't want any more Epstein files released and has called for the huge, sweeping controversy to just go away.
And Blanche must also know that Congress, which passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November with just one Republican voting against it, will be watching what he does next, as his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing is just two weeks away.
Count on Acting AG Todd Blanche to serve Trump above all else
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in June, in a lawsuit filed in April by independent journalist Katie Phang, that Blanche "has conceded that he is in violation" of the Epstein Files Transparency Act "by not responding substantively" in court to any of Phang's arguments about unreleased documents.
"I hope that members of Congress put some pressure on him for this," Brendan Ballou of the Public Integrity Project told me. "The extraordinary thing from this whole litigation is at no point has the government tried to argue that it followed the law, which is a pretty shocking position to take."
Phang, a former Florida prosecutor, is represented by lawyers for the Public Integrity Project,
What happens next?
Trapped in a triangle of Trump, a federal judge and Congress, call it a safe bet that Blanche will seek to serve Trump and stall the judge and Congress. That's what Blanche always does.
Trump picked Blanche because both men have made it plain that they see the job of attorney general as representing and defending only one American ‒ Trump.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act is pretty clear
Phang's lawsuit in April called for the Department of Justice to remove any unlawful redactions in the Epstein files, to restore documents that were posted online then removed, and to release currently hidden documents.
In May, Phang asked the judge for a preliminary injunction to force the DOJ to specifically produce unredacted versions ‒ or explain why it would not ‒ of eight emails, two DOJ documents and FBI interviews. Phang also asked for review and production of foreign-language documents that had not been released and a log of the legal reasoning behind all redactions.
Blanche now has to release that information on July 2 or make a valid legal argument for why he can't.
That redaction log looks like all kinds of trouble for Blanche, the DOJ and Trump. The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the creation of "a summary of redactions made, including a legal basis."
"They need to publish the redaction log that they were required to create and update it concurrently, or show why they can't do that," Ballou said. "That's a really significant obligation on their part."
Judge Sullivan's June 25 order noted that the Epstein Files Transparency Act required the redaction log to be published "more than six months ago."
I think I know why it has not been made public.
The DOJ is still going after judges following Epstein rulings
The DOJ said it reviewed about 6 million documents in the Epstein files and released 3.5 million of them. The Public Integrity Project estimates that about 200,000 documents were redacted.
If Blanche follows the law and publicly releases the log with the legal reasoning for all those redactions, then people like Phang and groups like the Public Integrity Project can go to court and challenge that reasoning. Phang seems to be doing very well at exactly that in this case.
"This is unfortunately a Department of Justice that has earned no amount of trust or good faith in how they've been making these arguments, not just in this case, but in other cases," Ballou said. "And so it's going to be incredibly important to understand what is the basis for the many thousands of redactions that they've made."
Blanche could produce the information that Phang wants. Or he can present a new legal argument for why that information can't be reduced. Or he can ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for an emergency stay of Sullivan's order.
A DOJ spokesperson on June 26 denied Sullivan's finding that Blanche had conceded to violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, adding this: "Judge Sullivan's perverse interpretation appears to be focused on driving misleading headlines."
That's a standard Trumpian tactic ‒ if a judge holds anyone in the administration accountable under the law, the administration then attacks the judge.
The spokesperson also accused the judge of trying to make the DOJ break the law by unredacting the names of victims in the Epstein files. But Sullivan's order doesn't call for that. Instead, it calls for "appropriate redactions to protect victims' information."
So expect this to drag on as Blanche battles transparency in a fight he can't win for Trump, who wants this all to just go away. This fight brings it all back into view. And it raises ‒ again ‒ serious questions about Trump's relationship with a sex offender who died in federal prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges during the president's first term.
Trump has repeatedly claimed ‒ inaccurately ‒ that he was "totally exonerated" in the Epstein files releases. If that were true, why would Blanche have a problem with the judge or the journalist trying to make him follow the law? Trump's team fights transparency when they feel a need to protect Trump.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Acting AG Blanche has a decision to make on Epstein Files | Opinion
Reporting by Chris Brennan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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This story was originally published July 2, 2026 at 2:08 AM.