Todd Blanche hit with court blow after new move to bury Epstein files

A federal judge dealt Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche a new blow Monday, rejecting his bid to close a lawsuit over the Epstein files.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan reviewed Blanche's response to an earlier court order and kept the case alive.

Journalist Katie Phang, who sued Blanche for burying documents the law requires him to release, must file her reply by July 13. Blanche then has until July 20 to respond.

Sullivan had already ruled last month that Blanche violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

President Donald Trump signed the law in November 2025. It required the Justice Department to release its files on the late sex trafficker.

The judge ordered Blanche to unredact a series of emails in which senders' and recipients' names were blacked out. The emails included one in which a sender told Jeffrey Epstein, "Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty," and another in which Epstein wrote that he "loved the torture video."

Blanche's team pushed back, arguing the redactions were legal.

"Many communications written by victims, without context, can appear disturbing on their face," Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward wrote in a court filing.

"The DOJ seems to have made no 'errors' in redacting the names of potential associates and potential abusers in the files," one survivor's attorney told MS NOW — capturing what critics called an inverted pattern with victims exposed and potential abusers shielded.

Sullivan also ordered Blanche to produce FBI interview notes from a woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her as a minor after Epstein allegedly introduced them.

A National Public Radio investigation found the Justice Department had withheld dozens of pages from those interviews.

Trump has denied the allegations.

The complaint alleged the department "retracted previously produced documents relating to Trump" and "failed to produce documents relating to Trump that other sources confirm exist."

"We have released everything," Blanche told Fox News in April. "We are not sitting on a single piece of paper."

A Justice Department spokesperson called Sullivan's ruling a "perverse interpretation" driven by a desire to generate "misleading headlines," MS NOW reported.

Sullivan ruled Blanche had effectively admitted he was violating the law — because his team never contested the merits, only arguing the court had no authority to hear the case at all.