WASHINGTON, D.C.— Following is a statement by Amb. Norman Eisen (ret.), executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, on the continued failure of the Trump administration’s Department of Justice to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. In recent weeks, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has made clear he does not intend to comply with the legislation signed into law five months ago.

“It has been over 150 days since the Epstein Files Transparency Act became law, but the Trump administration’s Department of Justice is still withholding materials that they are required to release by law. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has declared a need to ‘move on’ from the Epstein issue. By his own admission, there are at least three million pages being kept from the public. What has been released is often heavily redacted beyond what the law allows. Many pages are entirely blacked out with no explanation.”

“Blanche’s position is even more troubling given the Department’s failure to provide information relating to Ghislaine Maxwell’s abrupt transfer from a low security prison to a minimum security prison camp after she met with him. The Bureau of Prison’s policies prevent the transfer of sex offenders to minimum security prison camps, but the Department has offered no credible explanation for why Maxwell was an apparent exception.”

“DDF has filed multiple FOIA requests and legal complaints over the last year to obtain these records, many of which should already be public under federal law. Instead, the Department continues to conceal information the public has the right to know.”

“Now that Blanche is the Acting Attorney General, he is in the position to control the release of records that could directly implicate his own conduct – including whether an agreement was reached with Maxwell to transfer her to Club Fed. No government employee should be allowed to decide whether to release or withhold records that may implicate themselves in wrongdoing. That is a clear and unacceptable conflict of interest.”

“Todd Blanche must recuse himself from this case immediately. It is time for the DOJ to bring in outside counsel to conduct an independent review so we can finally know the extent to which the Trump administration has participated in hiding information about these horrible crimes.”

Earlier this year, DDF launched What We’ve Learned So Far, an analysis and summary of the limited tranche of files released and providing insight into what the DOJ had not yet produced.

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Democracy Defenders Fund brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state, and local allies across the country to defend in real-time the foundations of our democracy.