Epstein survivor says acting AG Blanche was ‘abrasive, condescending’ during meeting

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met Thursday with several survivors of deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein‘s crimes at the Justice Department. 

After the meeting, Epstein survivor Annie Farmer said in a statement to ABC News that she is “even more confident in urging senators to vote against his confirmation as the United States’ Attorney General.”

“I found him abrasive, condescending, and intentionally noncommittal to survivors — a marked contrast to his public testimony during his confirmation hearing,” said Farmer, who testified for the government at Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial.

She alleged that both Epstein and Maxwell touched her inappropriately at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch when she was 16.  

Farmer said Blanche “would not commit” to investigating why her sister Maria Farmer’s 1996 report into Epstein was ignored. That complaint to the FBI appears to be the first known report to federal law enforcement that Epstein was involved in child sexual exploitation. 

Farmer said that Blanche “refused to take accountability for mistakes made under his own leadership” and refused to release documents that would shed light on the charging decisions related to Epstein. She added that Blanche’s explanation for his meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell was “wholly dissatisfactory and contrived.” 

“His evasiveness felt like a deliberate attempt to claim the Attorney General’s office is powerless in this matter. By passing the buck once again, he is leaving survivors trapped in the same endless loop of searching for answers and receiving none,” she said. 

A spokesperson for Blanche said in a statement that the acting attorney general “answered questions and walked through what is needed for investigations to proceed.”

“The Justice Department is determined to bring justice for all victims of human trafficking and sex crimes,” the spokesperson added.  

Earlier in the day, Blanche commented on the meeting, saying he told them to take any information they have to federal investigators.

“I said to them the same thing that I’ve said publicly — publicly, repeatedly, which is that I want, and everybody at the Department of Justice wants to prosecute anybody that we can for committing crimes against any of the Epstein victims,” Blanche said. “So I encouraged them, like I’ve been saying publicly, that if they have information, they should they should go to the FBI.”

Blanche added there was “necessarily frustration” from the victims, but “there wasn’t any shouting.”

“It wasn’t all cordial, because there’s something that they want that I don’t think I can give them, which is some form of justice,” Blanche said. “And I want to be able to give justice in the form of prosecutions and maybe we could do a prosecution at some point. I don’t know.” 

Blanche said he had FBI agents join in the meeting as well as a prosecutor who specializes in sex trafficking and human trafficking, and that some attorneys for the victims joined remotely. 

Blanche called the meeting “productive” and said he mostly spent the meeting listening to their concerns.

Asked whether the survivors provided him any new information, Blanche said they didn’t, but he noted that he didn’t see that as the reason for the meeting. 

“The purpose of the meeting was just to listen. They weren’t prepared for this meeting, nor was I,” Blanche said.  “But I did say to them to the extent they had either new information or wanted to talk about what they have talked about in the past again, so we can take a second look or a third look. I encouraged them to do that.” 

The meeting came after a key GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose vote is needed to secure Blanche’s confirmation as the next attorney general, said that he will require Blanche to sit down with Epstein’s victims before he can vote for him. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced the new condition earlier Thursday during a hearing where one of the witnesses was Epstein victim Dani Bensky.

Facing a potentially rocky confirmation, Blanche made a brief attempt to meet with the survivors earlier Thursday. 

He and his team arrived at a Senate Judiciary Committee office where they sat for about half an hour, but no one joined them.

“I rearranged my schedule to try to meet with them,” Blanche told ABC News after leaving the office. “I’ve been here waiting. It didn’t work out, so we’re going to see if there’s a way we can meet either later today or sometime soon.”

“There’s nothing newsworthy about this fact because the Department of Justice will always meet with victims or their representatives, and if those victims or their representatives have evidence that anybody committed a crime, whether it has to do with Jeffrey Epstein, anybody else that was associated with Jeffrey Epstein, or anybody else, we will of course move forward and investigate and prosecute,” Blanche said.

Bensky testified in Thursday’s hearing that Blanche has never responded to repeated attempts to reach him to sit down and recount her story. 

“Blanche was willing to say that he would meet with [Epstein victims] and counsel — I understand the restriction that counsel has to be present,” Tillis said. “I expect that meeting to occur before I vote to vote out of this committee and I’m trying to get to yes. But this is a very important part of getting to yes.”

“There should not be any reason why, based on what Mr. Blanche said yesterday, if he said that he would do it today, then he can certainly do it over the next two weeks,” Tillis added.

Blanche told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that he would be happy to meet with victims but initially said he couldn’t meet with them personally if they were represented by legal counsel, before correcting himself later in the hearing. 

“I never said I can’t meet with them. I said if they were represented, I had to meet through counsel,” Blanche said. “But of course, I can meet with them. I’m the acting attorney general of the United States, so yes, I can.”