Trump’s acting attorney general backs public hearings with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday during the Semafor World Economy summit that he was open to the possibility of Congress holding public hearings with victims of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. "Absolutely," Blanche replied when asked if he would support such hearings. He also stressed that authorities remain willing to hear directly from victims. "We have said repeatedly from day one that if there’s any victim that wants to come forward and talk about what they know, whether it’s something that happened by Mr. Epstein, who’s dead, or another individual or individuals, that’s what the FBI does," said the acting attorney general in the president's administration Donald Trump, voicing his support just days after leaders of the House Oversight Committee expressed a similar intent.

"I have never said we’re moving on," Blanche declared. "There’s a lot of people in this country that correctly feel that we did not get closure with Jeffrey Epstein. I couldn’t agree with that more." His comments came during a rare appearance at the White House, in which he denied any ties to Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, calling claims that she knew them or that Epstein introduced her to her husband "lies."

Over the past several months, the controversy surrounding the Epstein files has followed the Justice Department, to the point of generating numerous criticisms from both Democrats and Republicans over the handling of the case. Recently, some lawmakers and Epstein survivors have accused the DOJ of not fully complying with transparency requirements, pointing not only to missed deadlines, but also to concerns about the exposure of victims' identities and heavy censorship of documents.

On this point, Blanche has repeatedly defended the department's actions, while attempting to take some distance from the issue since taking office following the ouster of former Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month. While the prosecutor went so far as to suggest earlier that the matter should not become the main focus of the department's future work, Blanche eventually rejected the idea that authorities are turning the page.