Journalist and lawyer Katie Phang has won another big win in her effort to get the records of Jeffrey Epstein made public.A federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, decided not to just trust what the Justice Department under Donald Trump said about the records.
Today, Sullivan ordered Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to personally deliver all the unredacted Epstein documents and emails to the court, along with proof that the Justice Department’s redactions are justified.
Instead of just accepting the government’s explanation, Sullivan wants to look at the records himself to decide whether the government is allowed to keep them secret.
In short, the judge is telling Trump’s Justice Department that if they want to hide records related to one of the worst child sex trafficking cases in U.S.
history, they need to prove they are following the law.
This is another blow for the Trump administration’s DOJ in the case, which Katie Phang has been pushing forward since Congress hasn’t taken meaningful action.
Earlier, Sullivan had already rejected the DOJ’s attempt to throw out Phang’s lawsuit, and found that the DOJ had basically admitted it was breaking the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In his ruling, Sullivan wrote, “The Attorney General does not respond substantively to any of these arguments.
The Attorney General has conceded that he is in violation of the Act.”
The records contain heavily redacted emails, FBI materials and other documents from the Epstein investigation.
The Justice Department says many redactions are needed to protect victims and law enforcement, while Phang says the department hasn’t followed the law passed by Congress requiring full public access to these files.
Phang shared her excitement on Threads.
She said, “Judge Sullivan has just ordered Blanche to produce…the UNREDACTED emails & documents, and Blanche must bring documentation supporting his representations the DOJ’s redactions are what he claims they are.”
Although the Justice Department claims they did nothing wrong and plans to appeal, they can’t do that until Blanche gives the unredacted files directly to Judge Sullivan.
This allows the court, not the Trump DOJ, to decide whether the public is getting the full truth about one of the most disturbing criminal scandals in recent history.
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