At a June 2, 2026 House Appropriations subcommittee oversight hearing on the Justice Department, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faced pointed questioning from Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) over the Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Dean accused the DOJ of withholding more than 3 million documents despite the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed with bipartisan support and was signed by Trump.
Dean said Blanche had previously told her the unreleased material was “all duplicative, and they include another guy named Epstein,” and she pressed him on why many unredacted files were available only to members of Congress at the DOJ, saying the law “says that they should be made publicly available.” Holding up notes she had transcribed in the DOJ reading room, she asserted, “What is true is that the president has lied about being on Epstein's plane, and the unredacted files prove that.”
Blanche maintained, “As I said to you when we spoke before, we have complied with the law,” and, when Dean said the files should be public, replied, “And they were, they were.” He also denied telling Dean that the withheld files were “duplicative” and concerned “another guy named Epstein.” The exchange continues a months-long fight over the withheld files (see Bondi Tells House Investigators She Handed the Epstein Files to Todd Blanche, Then Insists She Didn't Blame Him, Lawyer Katie Phang Sues Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for Withholding 2.5 Million Pages of Epstein Files Required to Be Released by an Act of Congress).
Correction (October 2, 2026): this entry described the hearing as a House Appropriations Committee hearing. C-SPAN's record identifies it as a House Appropriations subcommittee oversight hearing for the Department of Justice; the wording has been corrected, and Dean's and Blanche's statements are now quoted more fully from the hearing coverage.