A federal judge’s “unexpected” request to Attorney General Todd Blanche about the Epstein files shows a major judicial rule is in big trouble, a legal expert said on Sunday.
Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan asked Blanche to give the court unredacted versions of some Epstein-related documents for private review as the court deals with a lawsuit by lawyer and media person Katie Phang.
Phang sued Blanche for possibly breaking the Epstein Files Transparency Act by redacting certain documents without cause.
Blanche explained why some files were redacted, but Sullivan wasn’t convinced and asked for proof to back up his claims.
Joyce Vance, a former U.S.attorney from Alabama, pointed out this shows the Trump administration has weakened a key legal idea called the “presumption of regularity.”
“This idea usually meant that unless there was proof to the contrary, courts should assume government workers, including DOJ lawyers, did their jobs right.
But now it’s in trouble, and Judge Sullivan’s order is another blow to it,” Vance wrote in an article on her Substack.
“This latest order shows that Judge Sullivan doesn’t trust the government when it says something is true, even if it’s as simple as who is listed in the ‘to’ line of an email.
But the government has acted like it has something to hide, even after Congress passed the Transparency Act and Trump signed it into law.”
Phang has questioned whether some redacted names on a few Epstein-related files were properly hidden.
The Justice Department says the redactions were allowed under the Transparency Act, but Sullivan is not taking the DOJ at face value.
“So the judge isn’t trusting what the government says is true and is asking for evidence to back up their claims,” Vance wrote.
“Under any other president, the Attorney General would have been upset if prosecutors couldn’t be trusted.
There would have been an investigation.But here, the Acting Attorney General is the one being sued.This shows how far the DOJ has fallen.”
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