 "US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press conference at the US Department of justice on January 30, 2026 in Washington. (AFP)")
The US Department of Justice has completed its review of records tied to the Jeffrey Epstein –Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking case, a senior official said on Sunday, adding that the department stands by its handling of the file releases and has taken note of concerns from survivors and lawmakers. The top Justice Department official also played down the prospect of further criminal charges, saying that the existence of “horrible photographs” and troubling emails does not “allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.”
Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche, the point person on the Trump administration’s Epstein files release, told ABC News on Sunday that prosecutors’ review of the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking case “is over”.
Separately, in comments to CNN about Epstein, Blanche said that “victims want to be made whole” after surviving the scheme attributed to the late convicted sex offender and which led to a 20-year prison sentence for Maxwell beginning in 2022.
“And we want that,” Blanche said. “But that doesn’t mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.”
Limits of potential prosecutions
While Blanche acknowledged “there’s a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr Epstein or by people around him … that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody”.
Blanche’s comments took aim at survivors who met Friday’s release with calls demanding further accountability for the alleged clients of Epstein and Maxwell. He also made those comments amid complaints from federal Democratic lawmakers that Friday’s release – along with a number of earlier ones – were incomplete.
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View AllResponding to a question about claims by victim’s attorneys that some identities had not been correctly redacted, Blanche on Sunday said, “We immediately rectify that.” But, he added, “the numbers we’re talking about were .001 per cent of all the materials.”
Blanche also said it was “amazing” that the justice department was facing accusations of a cover-up less than a day after it dropped millions of files.
“We have nothing to hide,” Blanche said. “We never did.”
Lawmaker disputes scope of disclosures
However, US House member Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, disputed that the justice department’s Epstein investigative archive had been emptied to the extent called for by the transparency law that he co-authored.
“They’ve released at best half the documents,” he told CNN. “But even those shock the conscience of this country.”
Khanna alluded to some files released on Friday that revealed references to and correspondence with prominent individuals, including multibillionaire businessperson Elon Musk and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick. Those prominent figures were at times associated with Epstein or attended private events he organised at his homes but have not been accused of wrongdoing.
A former friend of Donald Trump, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in Florida to state charges of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor. Officials say Epstein then killed himself in federal custody in New York in 2019, during Trump’s first presidency, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.