DOJ Golden Retriever Todd Blanche Plays a 'Contempt Game' with a Federal Judge to Prevent the Public Release of 50 Pages of FBI Notes about Trump's Alleged Rape of a Teenager in Hidden Epstein Files

From [HERE] U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to hand over handwritten FBI interview notes detailing a woman's allegations against President Donald Trump. The order stems from an ongoing lawsuit regarding the government's compliance with the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandates public release of records connected to the investigation of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Sullivan ordered Blanche on September 16 to hand over the underlying notes for private review in both redacted and unredacted versions by 11 a.m. on September 24. In a notice of compliance filed Monday at Sullivan's direction, Blanche said the documents were hand-delivered to chambers 17 minutes before that deadline.

However, Blanche failed to turn over the court ordered redacted notes. Said failure makes it impossible for the judge to determine whether the government has grounds to withhold release of the notes to the public. On Friday, the judge ordered Blanche to also turn over the redacted nots.

Judge Sullivan is presiding over Phang v. Blanche, a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Katie Phang seeking the public release of unredacted records related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

The lawsuit accuses the DOJ under Attorney General Blanche of violating the law by heavily redacting or completely withholding critical components of the Epstein files. This includes eight emails, a draft indictment with hidden co-conspirator names, and handwritten FBI interview notes from a woman alleging that Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump when she was a teenager.

Central to the dispute are handwritten FBI notes taken during four separate interviews in 2019. The notes contain raw information from an interview with a woman who alleged that Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump when she was a teenager, and that Trump subsequently assaulted her. The notes are roughly 50 pages for 4 different interviews. Plaintiff Katie Phang said the files contain leads the government chose to ignore. [MORE]

Judge Sullivan has repeatedly ruled against the DOJ's attempts to shield the files. He previously issued a preliminary injunction stating that Blanche effectively "conceded" to violating the law by failing to properly address the lawsuit's allegations

"On each of those pages there's either available information that this administration, this DOJ, this FBI has intentionally refused to chase down," Phang said. Blanche initially refused to release the notes in any form, arguing they were "substantially similar" to the typed FD-302 reports the FBI produced from those interviews. Then at an August hearing, DOJ attorney Andrew Block told U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan the notes were "duplicative."

"You and I don't have to go to law school, and you don't really need a lot of information to be able to glean that there is a material substantive difference between something that is substantially similar and something that is duplicative," Phang said.

"There is no way that those 302s were literally word by word the same d— thing as the handwritten FBI notes," she noted.

"Do you see it's a game?" Phang said. "It's a game that Todd Blanche is playing, and he's yanking a lot of chains, isn't he?"

She also noted the Epstein Files Transparency Act lists specific grounds for withholding records, and duplication isn't one of them.

"Even if they are duplicative, that doesn't bar the release of the handwritten notes," Phang said.