Deputy Attorney general Todd Blanche cited victim protection protocols too explain why the Department of Justice initially removed a photo of president Donald Trump from the epstein files on Saturday, even as he admitted the agency does not believe the image actually depicts any victims.
at least 16 files vanished from the DOJ’s public Epstein document webpage less than a day after they were posted Friday. Among them was file 468, an image showing a drawer filled with photographs, including one with Trump alongside Jeffrey Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Another photograph in the drawer showed Trump surrounded by women.
In an interview on NBC’s Meet the press on Sunday, blanche said the DOJ “learned” after releasing the photo that there were women in it, and 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 Donald Trump.”
He cited the DOJ’s obligation under a New York judge’s order and federal law against releasing material that could identify survivors of Epstein’s crimes.
“But the reality is anybody, any victim, any victim’s lawyers, any victim rights group can reach out to us and say, ‘Hey, Department of Justice, there’s a document, there’s a photo, there’s something within the Epstein files that identifies me.’ And we will then of course pull that off and investigate it.”
Though, Meet the Press host Kristen Welker asked whether the image actually contained women who are victims or survivors.
“No,that’s not what I’m saying.if we believed that photograph contained a survivor, we wouldn’t have put it up in the first place without redacting the faces,” Blanche replied. “But notwithstanding what we believe, we don’t have perfect information. And so when we hear from victims’ rights groups about this type of photograph, we pull it down and investigate. We’re still investigating that photo. The photo will go back up. And the only question is whether there will be redactions on the photo.”
Later on Sunday, DOJ said it temporarily removed the image for further review out of an abundance of caution.
“After the review, it was persistent there is no evidence that any Epstein victims are depicted in the photograph, and it has been reposted without any alteration or redaction,” it said on X.