After a federal judge again told Attorney General Todd Blanche that the Justice Department could face civil contempt charges if it continues to refuse court orders to produce a tranche of new Epstein documents, a department spokesperson said leadership is not “concerned” about the warnings.
In a Wednesday order, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave Blanche until next Thursday to produce records for the Washington, D.C., court — or explain by the Monday before why the task is too unclear to complete. Sullivan alluded to potential contempt charges if Blanche fails to comply.
In response to questions from The Washington Sun about Sullivan’s warning, a department spokesperson said leadership “is not ‘concerned’ about this case, and our filings will speak for themselves.”
The DOJ has refused to answer whether Blanche will comply with Sullivan’s orders to produce the documents in question: a set of specific FBI interview notes and unreleased foreign-language documents requested by Katie Phang, a lawyer and political broadcaster with close ties to some of Epstein’s victims. The department must also provide documentation supporting its redactions in a series of emails.
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The DOJ has released millions of records mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed by Congress last year. Phang contends that some of the names redacted in those volumes may belong to conspirators of the now-deceased human trafficker.
Blanche already missed a June deadline to produce the records, and Sullivan rejected many of his team’s attempts to justify why certain documents should be exempt from public view. At an August hearing, Sullivan warned government lawyers that contempt proceedings could ruin their careers.
“The public has a right to know what the hell is going on,” he said.
The department continued to maintain as it has in previous court filings that it has already met the court’s standards in its statement to The Sun on Thursday.
“We have already shown the Judge ‘proof of redacted victim names’ and established that the plaintiff in this case seeks to unmask victim names,” the spokesperson said.
Phang is suing for the production of the Epstein files, redacted legally and with lawful withholdings, not this “slaphappy bullshit that we’ve received from Todd Blanche,” she said in a video on her Meidas Touch show Thursday.
“Blanche should have done it back in June,” Phang said. “He’s lucky he didn’t already get his ass defaulted by Judge Sullivan. But now that he’s going to be forced to answer the complaint, the bigger case — the big push for all of the documents — can move forward.”
The DOJ filed a notice Thursday asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Sullivan’s injunction.
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