The House Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on June 2, 2026.
I decided to break this thing up and re-arrange it by subject as a lot of the discussion about the Epstein files is broken up so much that it’s hard to follow.
As usual the Republican congress members didn’t provide much of anything by sycophantic praise for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and President Trump so I’ve cut out most of what they said.
I’ve included some notes about what each congressperson asked at the end of this document if you want to read it.
The questioning came in two sessions. In the first session each lawmaker had five minutes to ask Acting Attorney General Blanche questions. In the second they had about two minutes.
For the purposes of this edit I’ve organized everything by topic so both sessions have been combined.
Categories in Order
Jeffrey Epstein
$1.8 million Weaponization Fund
Fraud & Corruption
The Fatal Shootings of Alex Pretti and Rene Good
Jeffrey Epstein
Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY)
Meng: There have been many other outrages over the past 16 months under this department’s leadership, and following an interview by then Deputy Attorney General Blanche, Jeffrey Epstein’s closest associate, the child, the convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, was moved to a cushy minimum security prison and was given special treatment and unique privileges.
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA)
Dean: I want to speak about justice for the Epstein victims and survivors. And I’m going to begin with the closing words of Virginia Roberts Giuffre and her book. It’s literally the last paragraph. She writes, I hope for a world in which predators are punished, not protected. Victims are treated with compassion, not shamed. And powerful people face the same consequences as anyone else. I yearn to for a world in which the perpetrators face more shame than their victims do, and where anyone who’s been trafficked can confront their abusers when they are ready, no matter how much time has passed. We don’t live in this world yet. I mean, seriously, where are those videotapes the FBI confiscated from Epstein’s houses? And why haven’t they led to prosecution of any more abusers? That’s from Virginia. It was printed, as you know, posthumously after her death. Mr. Blanche, you and I had a chance a couple of weeks ago at the Department of Justice to speak about these cases. We discussed three things in connection with this monstrous decades-long crime spree. Number one, your failure to fully redact survivor information. Number two, your failure to follow the law and release the remaining files. And number three, your refusal to prosecute anybody else. Mr. Blanche, let’s continue that inane conversation. But this time it’s public. This time, and more importantly, it’s under oath.
Dean: You’re speaking to Congress. So let’s get into it. When will you comply with the law and release all of the files?
Blanche: As I said to you when we spoke before, we, complied with the law we have.
Dean: There are three million more documents. And you know what you said to me? They’re all duplicative, and they include another guy named Epstein. No. Nobody’s buying that.
Blanche: No, I did not say that.So look.
Dean: That’s what you said. Reclaiming my time.
Blanche: Can I answer? Can I ask?
Dean: The question? Why not? I gave you the answer. You gave me. No, actually, it’s my time, Mr. Chairman. I think those are the rules of this committee. I told him the answer he gave me. And now in public, he’s trying to say something else. Please stop the clock. Can I get that time back? May I have 20s back, Mr. chairman, thank you. I very much appreciate that. Mr. Blanche,
Blanche: You don’t want me to answer the question.
Dean: Mr. Blanche As you know, I visited DOJ three times for as much as ten hours, and I’ll be going back. Does the Epstein File Transparency Act say that the file should be available to members of Congress with a minder at DOJ, where you’re in a secure room, you can’t, write on, any of the binders. You can take your own notes. Is that what the Transparency Act says?
Blanche: It doesn’t require we allow you to come to DOJ at all. We did that on our own.
Dean: What does it say in terms of transparency? It says that they should be made publicly available.
Blanche: And they were.
Dean: Am I correct?
Blanche: And publicly available, and they were.
Dean: Oh, well, let’s talk about that.
Blanche: Okay.
Chairman: The time of the gentlelady has expired
(At this point Dean had only used three minutes of her allotted five minutes worth of questioning.)
Dean:I beg your pardon. Minutes. And I, I’d actually like to get 20s back. How do I get cut off two minutes into this minutes and 10s.
Chairman: The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Dean: I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman. This time, what rules are we operating under? That’s because he’s under a little bit of heat for not prosecuting anyone in these monstrous crimes. I’ve been in the room. I have been there. This is what we. I had to do to transcribe, to show what is true. What is true is that the president has lied about being on Epstein’s, Epstein’s plane and the un-redacted files prove that there’s a lot in here. I am shocked at this. There’s also this set of files in the in the file. This is investigation into the potential coconspirators of Jeffrey Epstein. I almost use up all the blank ink in the hallway because it’s all covered up. It’s all covered up. The American people are not stupid. They know that when members of Congress have to go in and actually unredacted, try to find the truth for these victims, something is corrupt, something is corrosive.
Dean: You were paid $10 million to represent the president. You hang a 30ft banner of the president’s menacing face over the entrance to the Department of Justice. You said that if you were terminated or not moved forward as attorney general, you would say to the president, I love you, sir. So, I have one question for you. Is your obligation to the victims and survivors of Epstein’s heinous crimes and all his perpetrators, or is your first obligation to the president of the United States?
Blanche: So without a doubt, we want to bring justice to everyone.
Dean: When will you bring that justice?
Blanche: Can I please finish?
Dean: Excuse me?
Blanche: Can I finish?
Dean: It’s been decades, when will you, when will you bring to justice?
Blanche: So, as I was saying.
Dean: When will you prosecute and who will you prosecute? You told me in our conversation that you blamed the victims.
Blanche: Every victim, every victim at the record, Mr. Epstein.
Dean: Let the record reflect that he told me that the victims didn’t give good names.
Blanche: Let me just let me be crystal clear that this Department of Justice will always, will always protect victims and will always prosecute anybody we can. Okay. Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts. Okay. What you are showing in a game of showmanship are redactions because of victims. Because that prosecution memorandum talks about, excuse me, perpetrators. How do you know that? Go ahead. Talk to exactly.
Dean: Talk to the victims. Talk to the victims.
Blanche: Victims, their victims, their victims names which we are required to redact, required by law to redact, which we did. Okay. So so I take this.
Dean then submitted documents for the record as she was over time.
