Top DOJ official denies there's any effort to redact mentions of President Trump from Epstein files

Source: ABC News

December 20, 2025, 8:12 AM


The No. 2 official in the Justice Department told ABC News in an interview Friday that there has been "no effort" to redact President Donald Trump's name from the release of files stemming from federal investigations into convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked Friday in an interview by ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas whether every document that mentions Trump will be released as the government continues its rollout of hundreds of thousands of files in the coming weeks.

"Assuming it's consistent with the law, yes," Blanche said. "So there's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald J. Trump or anybody else's name, Bill Clinton's name, Reid Hoffman's name. There's no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that and -- and so -- but again, we're not, we're not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein."

When directly pressed over whether there's been any order to DOJ personnel to redact materials involving Trump, Blanche rejected any such suggestion and accused Democratic lawmakers of using selective disclosures from Epstein's estate to present Trump in a negative light. "President Trump has certainly said from the beginning that he expects all files that can be released to be released and that's exactly what we're doing," Blanche said.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-doj-official-denies-effort-redact-mentions-president/story?id=128574448