“It has nothing to do with President Trump. Dozens of photos of President Trump with Mr. Epstein have already been published,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) stated this Sunday that President Donald Trump “had nothing to do” with the removal of files from the case of the late financier accused of sex trafficking of minors Jeffrey Epstein — including photos of the Republican — from the declassified documents published by the American government.
The agent was not involved in the decision to remove more than a dozen images among the thousands of pages published last Friday about Epstein, assured Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who stated that the measure responded to requests from victims’ organizations.
“After we published the photographs, we were informed that there were concerns about (the identity of) these women and the fact that we published the photos, so we removed them. It has nothing to do with President Trump. Dozens of photos of President Trump with Mr. Epstein have already been published,” he told NBC TV.
Blanche added that the “idea that a single photo was removed because President Trump appeared in it is absurd.”
Among the documents removed yesterday included the image of a desk with framed photographs of celebrities with Epstein — a well-known financier with privileged access to key figures —, where it was also possible to see, in an open drawer, several photos of Trump with women in swimsuits, reported “NBC”.
The remaining images that would have been removed include sexually explicit artwork, photographs of mailboxes full of envelopes and a page from a notebook with names and numbers.
The friendship between Trump and Epstein has been a source of questioning, especially from opponents of the Republican president, who claims to have cut ties with his former friend and ally in 2004, before he was accused for the first time of sexual abuse and exploitation of minors.
Blanche added that as soon as victims’ requests are met, the files will be republished. He defended the DOJ’s work in the face of criticism for the release of dozens of pages with censored excerpts among the files, released in compliance with a transparency law approved by Congress and ratified by Trump.
“If we need to censor faces or other information, we will do so and then post again. In this way, we are complying with the law, which, by the way, is what President Trump has been asking us to do since before he was elected. There is nothing he has to hide in the Epstein files,” he declared.
Blanche also warned that the reason the DOJ is still analyzing the documents and spacing out their release, instead of releasing them all at once on Friday, as stipulated, is “simply to protect the victims.”
Several senators and congressmen, including Dick Durbin, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, say their party “will investigate this violation of the law and make sure the American people know what happened.”
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