Blanche’s Meeting With Epstein Victims Went as Well as You’d Expect

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s meeting with several Epstein survivors was a major bust.

The Thursday meeting was an obvious gambit for Senate support for Blanche’s potential promotion to permanent attorney general.

The encounter was arranged hours after Republican Senator Thom Tillis said that his vote for Blanche’s confirmation would be predicated on whether the acting attorney general met with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.

During the second day of Blanche’s committee confirmation hearing, Epstein victim Dani Bensky warned the Senate Judiciary Committee that Blanche had dodged her and other victims for months, yet showed a sudden willingness to talk shop once he needed them to advance his Senate confirmation.

By 4 p.m., the meeting was a go, as several survivors were spotted filing into the Justice Department. Two hours later, however, they reappeared outside the building, looking “distraught and emotional,” according to MS NOW. Sky Roberts, the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, informed reporters outside the Justice Department: “I think we have a little ways to go here.”

“It had absolutely nothing to do with us, and it had everything to do with Blanche checking a box so that he can get a promotion,” Epstein victim and anti–human trafficking educator Elizabeth Stein told the network. “I don’t think that we had high expectations going into this meeting. I certainly did not. But I didn’t expect to walk out of the meeting feeling the way that we feel right now.”

“It was demoralizing, to say the very least,” she added.

Stein recalled that Blanche was completely unwilling to provide the group with anything substantial, actively dodging questions and refusing to provide assurances that his department would follow up on potential investigative leads. She noted that he could not provide a concrete explanation for Ghislaine Maxwell’s cushy prison transfer to a low-security prison camp, and wouldn’t clarify the improper redactions rampant throughout the released Epstein files.

“It just felt like more political posturing and using survivors the way that we’ve been used as political pawns,” Stein continued. “We’re victims of the crime of sex trafficking. And the fact that our Department of Justice will not take that seriously is beyond concerning, not just to us, but should be concerning to Americans all across this country.”

Epstein survivor Annie Farmer told ABC News she is “even more confident in urging senators to vote against his confirmation as the United States Attorney General” after finally meeting Blanche face to face.

“I found him abrasive, condescending, and intentionally noncommittal to survivors—a marked contrast to his public testimony during his confirmation hearing,” said Farmer, who served as a key witness for the government during Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial.

Tillis did not feel the same way: The North Carolina senator indicated over social media Thursday evening that he was satisfied by Blanche’s efforts.

“I commend Todd Blanche for doing what all his predecessors over the last two decades never did: meet with the victims of Jeffery Epstein’s horrific crimes,” Tillis wrote. “I appreciate his willingness to directly engage and listen to them.” ...