Epstein files live: Trump administration defends decision to redact huge number of documents and photos
DOJ says deleted Epstein files have ‘nothing to do with Trump’
- Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has revealed why some Jeffrey Epstein files were deleted from the Department of Justice website after being released, including a photo showing President Donald Trump.
- He said a number of photos were removed from the site for further redactions in response to concerns raised by victims or victims' rights groups, as mandated by a New York judge.
- “You can see in that photo there are photos of women,” Blanche told Meet the Press Sunday. “We learned after releasing that photograph that there were concerns about those women and the fact that we had put that photo up, so we pulled that photo down. It has nothing to do with President Trump.”
- He called speculation that files were deleted because Trump was in them “absurd” and noted that numerous public photos already exist of Trump with Epstein, reflecting their socialization in the 1990s and early 2000s.
- Blanche said files would be redacted and re-uploaded, adding, “We are, in every way, shape and form, complying with the statute, which, by the way, is what President Trump has been asking us to do since before he was elected. There is nothing that he has to hide in the Epstein files, there never was.”