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The Situation Room

More Epstein Files Released. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 30, 2026 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:01]

TODD BLANCHE, U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't even really know what that means in the course of an investigation.

There's -- the FBI's investigating. They are, for sure, coordinating with Secretary Noem and her folks as well. And I expect DHS is also continuing their investigation to some extent. And there's outside folks on this.

This happens, like I said, thousands of times a year. And it is tragic every single time it happens. And it's tragic this time, like it's tragic every other time. And so there is a process that has to be allowed to play out internally with these law enforcement organizations and certainly with the FBI as well to allow this investigation to go on.

QUESTION: You have talked about the expectations surrounding the Epstein files.

Do you agree that the DOJ itself, senior officials at the DOJ, played up those expectations for the first half of this year? I'm just sort of trying to understand, what responsibility does the Justice Department have for the criticism that has come over the handling of the Epstein files?

BLANCHE: I'm not commenting on criticism. People can criticize all they want.

My point was just to make plain that, when it comes to what we have been doing the past two months and why we weren't able to complete the review of six -- over six million pages, OK, so you're talking about two Eiffel Towers of pages in 30 days, in a way that made sure we complied with the act, right?

So the act had multiple requirements. Get it done in 30 days and you better not release any victim information, all right? So there's a lot of statutory construction, there's a lot of case law that exists that says that if those two are in conflict, we obviously are not violating the 30-day requirement by taking our time to comply with the act.

And so my comments were directed at this idea that, because we didn't review the six-plus million pages within 30 days, somehow the attorney general doesn't care about victims or is further doing damage to victims because of that, because exactly the opposite is true when it comes to the attorney general. QUESTION: Sir, I have questions on Epstein and Minnesota.

First, on Minnesota, for transparency, would you commit to releasing the bodycam video from federal officers that was involved in that shooting and their names at a point when the investigation can allow that? Would you make that public?

And I did not hear clarity on whether Renee Good's case is also in the civil rights round.

BLANCHE: I'm not committing to anything with respect to that investigation. That would be completely unfair to the investigation itself for me to stand here and commit to something for any reason.

It just -- it depends. It depends on what happens with the investigation. And that's a decision that we have made by the folks that are working the investigation.

As it relates to Ms. Good, I don't -- like I said before, there's investigations that happen all the time with respect to shootings like what happened last Saturday, and cases are handled differently by this department depending on the circumstances.

QUESTION: Sir -- on Epstein, sir, if I may just ask one on that, please.

You mentioned a letter to Congress. How and to whom did you notify the White House about the production that you're announcing today before you came out and spoke to us?

BLANCHE: How did I do what?

QUESTION: Notify the White House. What was your interface with the White House? You said there's a letter to Congress. Who did you update at the White House about this?

BLANCHE: Well, I don't know. I don't really understand the question. You mean who did I update the White...

QUESTION: Yes, did you provide them an explanation of what today's release would be?

BLANCHE: Look, we -- my team has certain communications with the White House. Let me just be clear. They had nothing to do with this review. They had no oversight over this review. They did not tell this department how to do our review, what to look for, what to redact, what to not redact.

They absolutely knew that we were -- I was doing this press conference today and that we were releasing the materials today. But there's no not -- there's no oversight by the White House into the process that we have undertaken over the past 60 days.

QUESTION: I wanted to ask a question about the evidence in the Alex Pretti investigation. Early on, our reporting showed that the only type of evidence that the

FBI initially had in its possession that it was processing for ballistics and DNA, et cetera, was Pretti's firearm. It did not have the firearm, the two firearms that were used to shoot Pretti.

Those were in the hands of HSI. And, also, there were concerns about chain of custody, things not being properly bagged and tagged, et cetera. Where are the guns now? Are they in the FBI's possession and being reviewed at one of their labs? And where -- who has the phone that Pretti was using in filming? And is that going to be reviewed by the FBI?

BLANCHE: I don't know. I don't have an answer to those questions.

[11:35:00]

Look, I think that there's -- Secretary Noem has been clear with the American people, but also with the Department of Justice that we're doing this together. We're coordinating. And so I'm -- I'm not following the -- in the weeds about who actually has possession of the firearms that were discharged.

QUESTION: But wouldn't that be something the FBI would need in order to conduct a thorough investigation into a color of -- this is obviously a color of law...

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: When I said I didn't know, I wasn't being critical of the question. I was just simply saying I don't know.

QUESTION: On the Fulton County seizure of ballots, local officials there, election officials say those materials were set to become public by February 9 and that the Justice Department could have simply asked for them.

Why was it necessary to conduct a search warrant? And do you expect the affidavit in that search warrant matter to become public any time soon? Do you have any comment or explanation as to why that was necessary?

BLANCHE: Listen, I'm not going to comment on -- it's a criminal investigation. I'm not -- I will not comment on it.

I will say that it should be no surprise in many of this room that -- or anybody watching that election integrity is extraordinarily important to this administration, always has been and always will be.

And so the fact that President Trump and this administration are investigating to make sure that -- well, are investigating issues around elections to make sure that we do have completely fair and appropriate election elections should not be surprising, but I can't comment on any criminal investigations, yes.

QUESTION: To follow up on that regarding Fulton County, can you explain Tulsi Gabbard's role in DOJ activities? BLANCHE: Can you just speak up a little bit, please?

QUESTION: Could you please explain Tulsi Gabbard's role in DOJ activity regarding the Fulton County search?

BLANCHE: What do you mean her role?

QUESTION: It was reported that...

BLANCHE: She was -- she happened to be present in Atlanta? I mean, yes, I'm -- I saw the same photos you did. I mean, she's not -- she doesn't work for the Department of Justice or the FBI. She's an extraordinarily important part of this administration.

This administration coordinates everything we do as a group. And so I think her presence shouldn't be -- it shouldn't be questioned, of course, and that's a big part of her job. And so the fact that she was present in Atlanta that day is something that shouldn't surprise anybody.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: All right, just two more.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: Just following up on that, so are you saying that Gabbard's appearance in that area had nothing to do with the Justice Department action?

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: I didn't -- I most certainly did not say that. No, I did not say that.

I said that -- exactly the opposite. I said this administration works closely together in all kinds of different areas. And so I'm not sure if there's surprise that the administration is working together on things like election integrity.

But if there is surprise, let me unequivocally state, we are working together as an administration on election integrity-type issues. And so that's all I can say about that.

All right, one more.

QUESTION: Can you clarify who at the Justice Department is involved in the Pretti investigation? Is it the Civil Rights Division? Is it the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota?

BLANCHE: So the -- I want to be careful about -- I want to choose words carefully about involved.

Investigations like this are led by law enforcement. So that's the FBI. There's coordination with the Civil Rights -- with Harmeet Dhillon's group. And there's trial attorneys there that this is their lives. They have done this for decades.

And so to the extent there's questions during an investigation that require a trial attorney to weigh in or if you need a civil rights attorney to draft a search warrant or help with an investigative process, I expect the Civil Rights Division here at main Justice will be part of that effort.

But I don't want to overstate what's happening. There's -- I don't want the takeaway to be that there's some massive civil rights investigation that's happening. This is a -- what I would describe as a standard investigation by the FBI when there's circumstances like what we saw last Saturday.

And that investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the Civil Rights Division, it will involve those.

All right, thanks a lot everybody. I appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, so we were just listening to the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche. And he was holding this press conference to give an update on the Jeffrey Epstein files.

But, as you just heard there, he went beyond that. On the Jeffrey Epstein front, he announced that DOJ has released three million documents, 2,000 videos. This is the first time DOJ has been releasing videos as part of the file release.

And so our team is going through that now. He said that there are redactions of women in the videos, not of the men. And the only woman who is not redacted in the videos is Ghislaine Maxwell. He also talked about 180,000 images that are being released from the Epstein files.

[11:40:09]

And he also talked about the Alex Pretti shooting. And he made news here. He claims he didn't, but he did. He confirmed that there is a civil rights investigation by DOJ into the Alex Pretti shooting. That is notable, because he had -- previously had taken that off the table for the Renee Good shooting that had happened weeks before.

He had said that there was no need for a civil rights investigation into the Renee Good shooting. When he was pressed on that today, he said, look, we get thousands of these cases a year, and we look at the circumstances. So he sort of obfuscated on that.

But it is notable that he confirmed that DOJ is probing into the Alex Pretti shooting and the civil rights -- whether there were civil rights violations on that. He also mentioned the Fulton County FBI search warrant that happened around the election and downplayed the idea that DNI Tulsi Gabbard was there.

So, back to Epstein, he certainly made some news on that front. Again, our team is looking through all these materials that was just released. There was a lot released. He said, in terms of the documents, there's three million out of six million, potentially responsive to the law passed by Congress.

But, again, we are well past that deadline when all of it was supposed to be released.

I want to bring in the survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, Haley Robson.

You were listening to all of this, Haley. What is your reaction?

HALEY ROBSON, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: I had to chuckle, because when you talk about the word transparency, I think of that word as volunteering information to help an investigation or to be productive in a positive result, and in doing so by putting all the cards on the table.

And that is certainly not what this administration has done. This is certainly not what past administrations have done. So I had to chuckle a little bit.

As far as what Todd Blanche was discussing, the videos, the pictures, the three million documents the part where the survivors -- and I'm speaking for myself -- are getting frustrated is that the FBI and the government has our 302s.

Our 302s are our own statements that we gave to the FBI and everything that the FBI holds in their -- in their possession of the victims and survivors that were abused by these monsters. And not one of us -- and some of us, to be clear, have applied for those files years ago.

And I have been very vocal on female Democrat Caucus. We saw them at the Capitol. I spoke to some of the Republicans. This has been an issue that a lot of us have been bringing to the surface, not just myself. And we're worried because we want our own files. We want our own 302s, and we have yet to discover those. We have yet to receive those.

And so there are things that they are not being transparent with or that they're not prioritizing. As far as Todd Blanche commenting on the privacy of survivors, you know what? Give me a break. You're not going to gaslight me into believing that this administration has prioritized the survivors or has cared about the survivors.

You and the DOJ, let me be very clear, the DOJ, when they were recklessly releasing these documents, there were several victims that were not redacted. And I'm not talking about myself, because I don't -- I'm OK not being redacted.

But what about the girls that were Jane Does, that were Jane Does from the very beginning when it all started? And instead of following that lead of keeping them as Jane Does and caring about their privacy, the DOJ released documents with their names. Some of them had their phone numbers and addresses attached.

And you want to preach about transparency? Perhaps you were being -- to me, it's deliberate. I mean, I don't know how anybody can look at this and not see the way in which they're releasing information is deliberate. It's retribution, in my eyes.

And I think -- I think where's Pam Bondi in all this? Why didn't she give the press conference?

BROWN: That is a very fair question.

I also want to follow up with you on what ABC's Pierre Thomas asked. And he said, can you reassure the American people that everything is being released that could impact President Trump?

And he said: "I can assure that we complied with the status -- with the statute, we complied with the act, and there is -- no, we did not protect President Trump. We didn't protect or not protect anybody. I mean, I think that there's a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by this review of these documents.

"And there -- it's not -- there's people in Washington, D.C., and around the country that have said for years the same consistent message about Jeffrey Epstein as President Trump. And so that has not been a change."

What is your reaction to that?

[11:45:03]

ROBSON: I mean, Ro Khanna stated there's -- Trump's name is present 13,000 times in the Epstein files.

That has been something that has come to light. I think we know that both men had a relationship together. I think there are a lot of powerful people that had relationships with Jeffrey. And, of course, it doesn't mean that they are guilty of abusing children.

I do feel, though, with all the files coming out and the reason we don't want these men redacted is because there does need to be an investigation to decide whether these men were actively abusing women or if they were just friends of Jeffrey. That's the whole point of an investigation.

It's not our job to investigate these men. It's the DOJ's job. It's this administration's job. And it's so infuriating that he could sit here in a press conference and act like the DOJ is -- no accountable -- they're going by the book, they're doing the best they can.

You're wrong. We're doing the best we can during this circus.

BROWN: What else do you want to add and what do you want the American people to know as we sift through these documents, these videos and these images?

ROBSON: You know, just be careful with the conspiracy theories.

Don't allow -- and I know it's so hard, especially for me, because there are specific things that I'm personally looking for in these files that I need for closure that have not been yet made public. And I know this to be true because I have had media outlets reach out to me in regards to the leaked e-mails.

And I just want to say for the public, be careful with the conspiracy theories and the rabbit holes that you go down. It does affect the survivors when there are things that are being made public, and then people take fragments and bits and pieces and they run with their own ideas and opinions.

And we have to treat this case like we would treat anything. It has to be factual. We need proof. We need facts. We do not need conspiracy theories.

BROWN: And I think you're exactly right. We need facts.

And I just want -- to be clear on Trump's name IN the documents, some of it is redundant. So we're not able to track down that 13,000 number right now. But, certainly, his name is in the document, and including the flight logs that was just released.

Again, our team is going through all of that as we speak.

I want to go to our Paula Reid.

And, Haley, thank you so much for your time and your perspective.

Paula, you were there in the room. You were asking questions. What stood out to you?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So look, this is a Justice Department that has seen quite a few controversies, but no controversy has been as significant for this administration and this Justice Department as its handling of the Epstein files.

And the reason is, the political liability here is that the pressure for more transparency has come from the base. So it's notable today that the deputy attorney general came out and gave a press conference announcing the end of its review of these documents and a new release of millions of pages.

Now, he said these are not just documents. These are also videos and images, though he did say that a lot of these videos, these are not necessarily videos that Jeffrey Epstein or his associates produced. Some of this is commercial pornography.

But our team is going through this new release now and will bring any new details. But, as you know, the Justice Department has been under significant pressure to release more of the materials in its possession related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Congress passed a law last year requiring the release of all of these files. And the Justice Department has had to pull in a lot of prosecutors to help them get through this enormous task, because, as they review these documents, they have to protect victim identities.

And there's also a lot of other reasons that they might have to withhold some things, including, he said, national security or ongoing investigations. And when he said some materials were held because of ongoing investigations, we know, Pamela, there's been a lot of criticism that more people haven't been charged.

I had to follow up with him on that. Here's what he said:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Mr. Deputy Attorney General, you said in your remarks that you have withheld some documents because of ongoing investigations. I have done this long enough to know you can't comment on ongoing investigations.

But can you say a little bit more? Because, as you know, the department has been criticized for not bringing charges against more people. Are there still open investigations related to Jeffrey Epstein?

BLANCHE: So what I was laying out in my comments is the statutory -- what the statute talks about, about what we can withhold and the reasons we can withhold it. I wasn't pointing to any particular -- I wasn't trying to be coy or otherwise suggest there's some investigation.

As you all know, Jay Clayton in New York is in charge of any potential investigations. And I'm not going to comment beyond that on that.

REID: So, you were referring to Clayton?

BLANCHE: Excuse me?

REID: You were referring to Clayton's investigation?

BLANCHE: I wasn't referring to anything. I was just saying that Congress, in their wisdom, allowed us to withhold documents if there were ongoing criminal investigations.

[11:50:06]

That's one of the four reasons. I wanted to make clear with respect to any national security information that we were not withholding -- there's not some tranche of super secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we're withholding. We're actually not withholding anything based upon NDI.

QUESTION: Deputy Attorney General...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: So, the translation there, Pamela, I believe, is that he was just reading what he is legally required to withhold and not trying to reveal that there are any significant or specific ongoing investigations.

But I will note, it is significant that the deputy attorney general came out, made this announcement and took a lot of questions, because, of course, usually it would be the attorney general making a big announcement like this.

BROWN: Right.

REID: But her handling of this matter has been widely criticized. But even Todd Blanche said there is a hunger for more information that he does not think will be fully satisfied even by this release.

BROWN: Yes.

And Haley Robson, the survivor we had on, noted that -- she answered that question and also why wasn't Pam Bondi there? I think there's a real question there and the question of accountability too in her handling of all of this.

Thank you so much, Paula Reid. I'm so glad you asked that question, because it was my question too. So thank you.

Let's bring in CNN's Evan Perez and M.J. Lee.

You have both been sitting here sifting through what was released by DOJ.

What stands out to you, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the great volume that they have finally managed to release, which is going along the way -- a long ways in trying to satisfy this law, which has -- which ordered the department to produce these documents with the most minimal of redactions.

And so one of the things we're watching for is the kind of -- the type of things that they have tried to redact here, some of the things that the attorney -- that the deputy attorney general talked about obviously is protecting the identity of witnesses.

But one of the things that -- I think one of the concerns that we have that you hear certainly from some of the victims and the survivors is that they are shielding people who played roles as co-conspirators. There are a number of references in here in some of the documents to the FBI looking at co-conspirators in different parts of the country.

So, hoping that we can learn more about that as we go through some of these documents. There's a lot of financial records in here also. And there's some references here to the president of the United States, President Trump, some of which we can't verify. Some of these are -- obviously, they're raw FBI intake documents, which is relating information that they have received from witnesses.

It's clear that many of these, they could not verify, but the number of times that obviously the President of the United States Donald Trump's name comes up is going to be something that everybody's going to be focusing on and to try to figure out whether the FBI did everything they could to follow up on those.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: And, Pam, as we have been going through these documents, keep in mind the survivors and the victims who are at home who have been wondering when the next batch of documents would come, they are going through these documents too.

And I have been in touch with some of them just to get a general sense of, how are you going through these? What is your initial reaction to the deputy attorney general and what he said? One thing that stood out to me was that he was pretty defensive of the DOJ's handling of materials related to the victims.

He said multiple times, look, we are doing this for the victims. Any allegation that we don't want to protect their well-being is not true. But, Pam, the reason that the department has gotten so much criticism is because we have already had multiple huge batches of documents where, frankly, the redactions have been botched, according to the victims and survivors and the lawyers.

BROWN: We heard that from Haley, yes.

LEE: What they are trying to do here is redact information that they are legally allowed to redact.

But, as a part of that, something that you mentioned and that's really important, the victims have felt like there have been moments where information about co-conspirators, people who helped enable Epstein were redacted.

And then, on the flip side of that, there were many instances -- and we have reported on this -- where multiple Jane Does, people who wanted to be anonymous, they have been seeing their names in the files. And I think this sort of defense from Blanche is going to strike the survivors as pretty ironic.

Just one example, Pam, just yesterday, I was talking to a lawyer who represents multiple Jane Does. And she told me that when she saw a Jane Doe client's name appearing in the file, she reached out to the DOJ and never heard back.

So, I think when Todd Blanche gets out there and says, e-mail this e- mail address if you see that there is a mistake, we are open to the criticism, we want to correct our mistakes, I think there are just plenty of people who feel like, well, we have tried that and these mistakes haven't been corrected.

PEREZ: One last thing I think we should mention, during the press conference -- press conference just now, the deputy attorney general mentioned that they're seeking a court order to be able to release some lawyer -- some privileged materials from lawyers related to the Epstein estate.

[11:55:04]

Remember that he did not get any of that before he went down to interview Ghislaine Maxwell...

BROWN: Yes. And that's notable.

PEREZ: ... which was essentially a way for him to clear the president's name. And he still apparently hasn't gotten the OK from the state to release those documents? That's really strange.

BROWN: Well, Congress has. Congress has been releasing, the Oversight Committee.

PEREZ: Correct.

BROWN: Very quickly, I thought it was notable what he said about the Alex Pretti investigation, the civil rights investigation, and trying to make sense of why there wouldn't be one for the Renee Good one too.

PEREZ: Right. He still did not answer the question. Why isn't there same -- same treatment of the Renee Good investigation? We still don't have the answer to that.

BROWN: All right, thanks so much, Evan Perez. We appreciate it.

Very newsy morning here, Friday morning.

PEREZ: Very.

BROWN: Thank you so much for joining us.

"INSIDE POLITICS" with our friend and colleague Dana Bash starts after a quick break.