When a group of women who identify assurvivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse found out that they could finally meet with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, they hatched a plan.
They prepared for a tense but businesslike meeting where they’d tell the Justice Department to pursue new leads on Epstein’s associates and confront the government ondisclosing their identitieswhen it published batches of investigative files.
“What we were met with was, when I recall it in my brain, jaw-dropping to me,” said Liz Stein, a 53-year-old human trafficking specialist from Philadelphia who says Epstein abused her. “We walked out of there feeling emotionally exhausted and really dehumanized.”
In exclusive interviews with USA TODAY, three of the women in the meeting said that Blanche, PresidentDonald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, was combative and dismissive. And after they pressed him about whether he was familiar with the documents the Justice Department released, they all came to the same conclusion: Todd Blanche hadn’t read the Epstein files.
The women's comments come as Blanche’s nomination hangs in the balance due to unrelated concerns about him. Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, two Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, have stalled his nomination as theyfight with Trumpover the terms of a controversial settlement deal with the IRS. A vote to confirm Blanche to the top job has been postponed.
Tillis told Blancheon July 16 that he would only vote to confirm him if Blanche met with Epstein’s accusers, a request that came minutes after Dani Bensky testified that she and other Epstein survivors had been trying fruitlessly for a face-to-face with him. The DOJ announced the same day that Blanche would meet with them.
USA TODAY reached out to the Justice Department multiple times regarding details of the July 16 meeting. The Justice Department referred USA TODAY to a statement by Alessandra Serano, the trafficking and child exploitation coordinator.
Serano said that Blanche attempted to address all of the women’s questions and that “the Justice Department is determined to bring justice for all victims of human trafficking and sex crimes.”
Here’s what we know about how the meeting went.
Bensky, a teacher from Hawaii, said that the day she met with Blanche, July 16, was already intense because she also testified against him at his confirmation hearing. She said someone from the Justice Department first offered her a staff meeting. Later, she said they offered a meeting with Blanche.
Bensky said she and a handful of other Epstein survivors who live all over the country attended. So did family members of the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the most outspoken and well-known Epstein survivor. She said Blanche brought Serano, other staffers, and another man from the FBI. She said the women's lawyers joined via a video call.
Bensky said Blanche responded to the women's questions with defensive, semantic arguments and did not commit to investigating any of the leads they provided about Epstein associates. She said the tone of the meeting came across as Blanche asking the women to get to their point.
“I feel like he was acting like a defense attorney,” Bensky said of Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer in multiple criminal cases. “That is at the core of what survivors have been feeling is that he will always protect his own and the administration’s reputational harm.”
Serano, from the DOJ, said in a statement that Blanche was “direct with survivors about how the criminal investigation process works and what was required to build and pursue a criminal case,” including meeting with an FBI agent.
Serano said there were FBI agents in the room ready to follow up with them on their cases, and “every survivor in attendance was given direct contact information for a senior DOJ leader.”
