Did Todd Blanche Lie to the Senate Yesterday? He Signed the Answer Himself — Read It and Decide.
Yesterday, during his Senate confirmation hearing, I watched and listened to Todd Blanche characterize the roughly two to three million pages not publicly released from Department of Justice’s original Epstein-file collection as unrelated or irrelevant to Jeffrey Epstein.
His testimony does not square with the DOJ’s earlier explanations.
On January 30, 2026, Blanche signed Pam Bondi’s DOJ’s official production letter. He wrote the department had initially collected more than six million pages as potentially responsive, but that the collection included over-collected, duplicate, and partially duplicate material. He also acknowledged that approximately 200,000 pages had been withheld or redacted under alleged legal privileges, including attorney-client privilege, work-product protection, and deliberative-process privilege.1
The same letter said other material was withheld or redacted to protect victims, exclude child sexual abuse material, safeguard active investigations, and prevent publication of graphic images. It further admitted that foreign-language records and technically incompatible files had not been produced because DOJ had not yet determined whether they were responsive, and that some sealed or court-restricted material remained subject to judicial approval.
Then, on May 29, 2026, when asked who was responsible for the production process, Bondi told House investigators:
“I delegated that oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.”
She continued:
“The team of professionals who reviewed all of the materials that we collected assured me, the only materials that were withheld were either non-responsive, privileged, or duplicative.”
Later in the same interview, Bondi said that much of the difference between the six million pages collected and the three million released was:
“duplicative or privileged or completely unrelated to Jeffrey Epstein.”
These earlier explanations included three separate categories: duplication, privilege, and material unrelated to Epstein. Even more important is the January letter which includes still more categories, including protected victim material, unreviewed foreign-language records, technically incompatible files, and court-restricted documents.2
On Wednesday, all that changed. Blanche testified under oath that that all two to three million unreleased pages were simply unrelated or irrelevant. That’s it.
Blanche’s sworn testimony is contrary to what the American people have been told by Bondi and Blanche in the past.
Here’s what makes all of this hard to swallow.
On the record, Blanche stands as one of the least qualified, least ethical people ever put forward to run the Justice Department. Just last week a federal judge looked at his conduct and sent it to the New York State Bar for disciplinary review. Sit with that for a second. That referral didn’t come from a rival or a talking head. It came from a judge.3
That should bother you. Because you already know the standard. You know what “the top lawyer in the country” is supposed to mean, and you know this falls short of it.
America deserves better than this.
Mitch Jackson, Esq.
According to the DOJ letter, the stated reasons that some materials were not released or were released only in redacted form are:
* Protection of victims’ identities and personal privacy
* Child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
* Active federal investigations or ongoing prosecutions
* Images depicting death, physical abuse, or injury
* Attorney-client privilege, work-product doctrine, and deliberative-process privilege
* Court sealing orders and protective orders requiring judicial authorization before release
* Grand jury secrecy requiring court approval before disclosure
* Foreign-language documents that reviewers could not practicably review for responsiveness
* Electronic files that could not be reviewed because of technical incompatibility with DOJ’s review platform
* Redaction of sexually explicit images and videos to protect victims or possible victims
There is also the lie that he is legally barred from meeting with the Epstein victims; that was the most blatant.
I appreciate your commentary! You always present well thought out and well researched articles (and, of course, expose positions that are in alignment with my own). I’m not in a financial position to subscribe, so I especially appreciate that most of your content is available for free, and that your comment section is unlocked.
I am so grateful to you Mitch for sitting through and watching all the mendacious sh*t coming out of Blanche's mouth, and reporting it as even-handedly as you do.
I cannot stand to watch or listen to the Circus Clown speak, nor any bozos on his behalf for that matter, because I think I would need mental health counseling after just five minutes of exposure. Knowing that makes me especially grateful for strong minded people like yourself, Liz Oyer, Heather Reese, Lucian Truscott, Terrance Goggin et. al. who can sit through, listen, process and write honestly about these clowns.
On a side note, it does not cease to amaze me what short shelf lives bar licenses seem to have for those who go to bat for the Circus Clown. Blanche already looks like he will follow the Michael Cohen-Rudy Giuliani-Lin Wood-Sidney Powell path of disgraced lawyers who trashed their legal careers and their law licenses doing the Circus Clown's bidding.