"Appearing for the first time before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday, a hearing scheduled to ask him about the Justice Department's 2027 budget, Blanche was asked by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) about whether the DOJ would be continuing to release, say, the alleged reams of Epstein files and details not yet released. He replied with some good ol' political amnesia."
""I want to go on to the Epstein investigation," Merkley said. "Is it closed or open?" "When you say, 'the Epstein investigation,' what are you referring to, Senator?" Blanche replied. Merkley continued, "Well, the FBI said last year, in July, that it had closed the Epstein investigation. So, I'm just using their words. Is it open or closed?" "I don't believe the FBI said that," Blanche said. He added: "I guess I don't understand what 'Epstein investigation' means.""
"It was in July that the FBI with the DOJ quietly released a memo saying they couldn't find Epstein's "client list"-despite Blanche's predecessor, Pam Bondi, claiming such a file was "sitting on [her] desk" in February-and it's pretty fucking difficult to believe Blanche is doing anything but playing dumb. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law in November, the DOJ was meant to upload the Epstein files in full by Dec. 19-a deadline the department admitted that same day it would miss, though not before managing to drip-feed a smattering of heavily redacted documents."
Blanche appeared before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee to address the Justice Department’s 2027 budget. When asked whether the Epstein investigation was open or closed, he responded by questioning what the term “Epstein investigation” meant and denied that the FBI had made the cited statement. The record indicates the FBI and DOJ released a memo in July stating they could not find Epstein’s alleged “client list,” contradicting earlier claims. The Epstein Files Transparency Act required full uploading of Epstein files by Dec. 19, a deadline the DOJ acknowledged it would miss, while still releasing some heavily redacted documents afterward.
#epstein-investigation #justice-department-budget #epstein-files-transparency-act #fbi-memo #senate-hearing
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