Removing photos from Epstein files release ‘nothing to do’ with Trump, deputy AG says | Jeffrey Epstein

Deputy U.S. attorney Todd Blanche said on Sunday that Friday’s removal of photos from the Jeffrey Epstein files, including those of Donald Trump, had “nothing to do” with the president and argued that the images would likely be released again after it is determined whether they need redaction.

The suspension of the 16 people came at the request of victim advocacy groups, Blanche said. Blanche: “We don’t have perfect information” He told NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday. “And when we hear about this type of photo from victims’ rights groups, we take it down and investigate it.”

As Blanche stated, the investigation into the photos was ongoing and the photos would “come back”, the only question was “whether corrections would be made”.

Victims rights advocate Gloria Allred he told CNN On Saturday it was said that “the system has failed the survivors”, including the release of files that may have been “inadequately redacted”.

“I saw names of survivors that should never have been published, because the main purpose was to protect the survivors,” he told a media outlet.

“My other concern also relates to the images of some of the potential victims and survivors, which is that some of the images are unedited, should have been redacted, and in some cases the images may be of naked women. And that is completely unacceptable.”

An Epstein victim who reported the sex offender to the FBI in 2009 said in a letter to the justice department on Sunday that their names were mistakenly shown in a DoJ document dump but that she had not previously been allowed to view the FBI file.

“The contradiction is extraordinary,” the victim wrote in the redacted letter sent to x. “The DOJ maintains that my own file requires a sustained review to determine whether redactions are appropriate – but has had no difficulty publicly disclosing my identity in bulk.”

Blanche and Allred’s comments come as the Trump administration faces criticism over how it handled Friday’s partial evacuation, when a full evacuation was required under congressional law.

The release of justice department files on Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor and died while awaiting sex trafficking charges, occupied the agenda of Sunday talk shows. Democratic officials claimed the government had failed to meet its legal obligation to fully release investigative documents.

“The release of these initial documents is insufficient,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said on ABC’s This Week. “It does not meet what the law requires.”

Jeffries argued that the legislation requires the justice department to “provide a written explanation to Congress and the American people as to why they withheld certain documents” within 15 days.

The comments came after Jeffries’ fellow Democrat in the House, Representative Ro Khanna of California, said impeachment proceedings should be filed against attorney general Pam Bondi because the full Epstein documents were not released by December 19. That date was set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Khanna co-wrote.

On Sunday, Blanche argued that the government did not have time to review all the files to make the necessary corrections to protect victims.

“It’s so simple and so clear,” said Blanche. “The law also requires us to protect victims, so the reason we are still reviewing documents and continuing our process is simply to protect victims.

“So the people who complained about the lack of documentation submitted on Friday are the same people who apparently do not want us to protect the victims,” he added.

Among the images removed from the Justice Department’s disclosures page on Saturday was a photo of Epstein’s desk at his New York mansion, with two photos of Trump inside. Images were also removed from the download folders.

Democrats on the House Oversight committee posted on

“Pam Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public,” they added.

‘This is a White House cover-up,’ Democratic members of the committee said he said in a later post.

The justice department said in a statement: “Photographs and other materials will continue to be reviewed and edited in accordance with the law with great care as we receive additional information.”

Criticisms of the dossier change point to the highly charged political nature of the Congress-ordered document dump; Democrats claim the files released so far have been heavily edited and selected to portray Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, in a bad light.

Republicans on the committee responded: saying He previously reported that Democratic-elected publications “repeatedly published cherry-picked edited photos in an attempt to score political points and create a hoax against President Trump. They chase headlines at the expense of the victims. They can NEVER be trusted to conduct serious investigations.”

Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia, told NBC that if there are unanswered questions about Clinton’s relationship with Epstein, “she needs to address them, and I suspect she will do so.”

Kaine added: “Let’s put all the facts and all the material on the table so people can make their own judgments about everyone connected to this terrible, terrible event.”

After photos of the former president enjoying a hot tub with Ghislaine Maxwell and what looked like a young woman were included in the broadcast, controversy over corrections, removals and politically charged edits placed Clinton back in the frame of the scandal.

“It’s clear what Republicans in the White House and the Justice Department and their desperate friends in Congress are doing,” a Clinton spokesman said. “It’s not clear what they’re hiding. But it can’t be a good thing.”

Democratic 2016 presidential candidate and former first lady Bill and Hillary Clinton are under pressure to testify before the committee.

Pro-Trump Republicans who call for “transparency” are also sounding the alarm. U.S. House member Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, said she was concerned about “unnecessary redactions” but added that she was “also concerned about making sure we preserve the faces and names of potential victims.”

But it is also clear that the justice department’s corrections can be very aggressive in some cases. The photo of Clinton, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross on the plane released Friday was also edited to hide a child’s face. The child was later revealed to be Jackson’s son, and the unaltered image is readily available from commercial photo archives.