Lawyers predict ‘more suppression and no active investigations’ but victims’ groups determined to continue fight
AsDonald Trump’s former defense lawyerTodd Blancheappears poised forconfirmationas attorney general, numerousJeffrey Epsteinsurvivors have sounded the alarm that a US justice department helmed by him would derail their pursuit of justice.
In a letter urging Republican senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn to reject his nomination, these survivors said that Blanche’s handling of the Epstein case as acting attorney general was characterized by misstep after misstep.
Blanche, who reportedly led thedisclosureof documents as required by the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, allowed the disclosure of survivors’ names, photos and identifying information – but omitted the names of accused abusers and enablers, they said.
While more than 1,000 teenage girls and women were abused, not a single person other than Epstein andGhislaine Maxwellfaced charges, they noted. And in a recent sit-down with survivors at Tillis’s urging, survivors “received an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting”, they said.
These survivors’ concerns about Blanche by no means exist in a vacuum, and have only fanned the flames of a controversy that has dogged Trump since he again took office. While campaigning, Trump promised to release all Epstein files – playing into his supporters’ belief that there was a global sex-trafficking cabal involving high-profile business and political figures.
But Trump’s justice department only released dribs and drabs of information until Congress forced its hand following a series of embarrassing disclosures that renewed attention on Trump’sformer friendshipwith Epstein. Trump has denied all wrongdoing including in relation to Epstein.
Blanche’s meeting with Maxwell in prison last summer, which was followed by her transfer to a lower-security facility, further heightened outrage over the DoJ’s underwhelming disclosures. The constellation of circumstances has raised the question: what would a Blanche-directed justice department mean for Epstein survivors’ search for justice?
Legal veterans told the Guardian that a Blanche-led DoJ would likely derail survivors’ efforts for accountability. Several survivors’ advocates said that all hope was not lost, noting that roadblocks likely under Blanche did not portend a permanent impediment to justice.
Bryan Sullivan, a partner withEarly Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae, said that based on what he has read and seen in Blanche’s testimony before the judiciary committee, he thinks a confirmation would mean “more suppression and no active investigations” into Epstein’s sex trafficking.
“I think it’s because that’s what Trump wants. He wants this to go away,” Sullivan said. “And that’s one of the reasons he fired [former attorney general Pam] Bondi, because she didn’t make it go away, in my opinion.”
Ron Kuby, a renowned defense lawyer with a focus on civil rights, voiced similar sentiments about a Blanche confirmation.
“It means that no other perpetrators will be held criminally liable for their misconduct,” he said. “That’s no different from the way it’s been throughout theTrump administrationand the Biden administration.”
“All the millionaires and billionaires and hangers-on and others in Epstein’s orbit who, you know, enabled him have not been brought to justice,” Kuby said. “And they’re not going to be.”
Carl Tobias, the Williams chair in law at the University of Richmond School of Law, said that even if Blanche were not confirmed, he could serve as acting attorney general for the rest of Trump’s term, meaning he would have continued control over the Epstein case.
