Deputy Lawyer Basic Todd Blanche was defiant within the face of potential authorized penalties over not totally releasing the Justice Division’s information associated to the late intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
In an interview Sunday with NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, he was requested about feedback from members of Congress exploring potential impeachment or contempt prices and whether or not he takes the threats critically.
“Not even a little bit. Bring it on,” Blanche replied. “We are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing to comply with this statute.”
The Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act required the Trump administration to launch all of the Epstein information by Friday with some exceptions to guard victims’ data.
However the paperwork which have come out solely characterize a small fraction of the whole, and plenty of of them are closely redacted.
That precipitated Rep. Ro Khanna, one of many leaders behind the overwhelmingly bipartisan Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act, to warn that the Justice Division wasn’t complying with the legislation.
Rep. Thomas Massie, who additionally led the push to launch the Epstein information, mentioned in a social media submit {that a} future DOJ might convict Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi and others, including “THEY ARE FLAUNTING LAW.”
On Friday, Khanna mentioned he and Massie have already began engaged on drafting articles of impeachment and inherent contempt in opposition to Bondi, although they haven’t determined but whether or not to maneuver ahead.
“Impeachment is a political decision and is there the support in the House of Representatives? I mean Massie and I aren’t going to just do something for the show of it,” Khanna informed CNN.
On Sunday, Blanche mentioned that members of Congress criticizing DOJ’s efforts “have no idea what they’re talking about,” explaining that there are about one million pages of paperwork, and “virtually all of them contain victim information” that should be protected.
He additionally argued that releasing the Epstein information on a rolling foundation over a matter of weeks as an alternative of unexpectedly on the Friday deadline was nonetheless in compliance with the legislation Congress handed.
“There is well settled law, as they should know, that in a case like this where we’re required to produce within a certain amount of time, but also comply with other laws like redacting information, that very much trumps … some deadline in the statute,” Blanche mentioned.
