Blanche on Epstein files: "There were mistakes that were made"

Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche on Wednesday acknowledged "mistakes" in the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files, but said the Trump administration "has been more transparent than any past administration."

"The reviewers were qualified, experienced attorneys within the department and the FBI. They took pains to apply appropriate redactions," he told senators at his confirmation hearing. "There were mistakes that were made, and so approximately 1% of the redactions had to be fixed after we released the Epstein files."

Mr. Blanche said the Justice Department had "dozens of lawyers on call 24/7" to review the documents and correct mistakes.

"Whenever we learned that any victim's name had been improperly not redacted, we immediately took the document down and fixed it as soon as we could. That doesn't excuse the mistakes, of which I take responsibility, but it does mean that we tried to fix them. We complied with the act," he said.

"The Biden administration did nothing to be transparent about the Epstein case. We have been extraordinary transparent, in not only producing the records, but letting the unredacted versions be available to anybody in this body."

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