Blanche Apologizes for Epstein-File Redaction Errors as Senate Grills Trump's Attorney General Pick

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for a high-stakes confirmation hearing to lead the Justice Department permanently, and spent much of it on the defensive over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a now-defunct "anti-weaponization" fund and President Trump's legal entanglements.

The Epstein files dominated the early questioning. Blanche, who served as Trump's personal defense attorney before joining the government, acknowledged "mistakes that were made" during the department's release of the documents and apologized directly to survivors whose personal information was not properly redacted. "Approximately 1% of the redactions had to be fixed after we released the Epstein files," Blanche told senators. "Whenever we learned that any victim's name had been improperly not redacted, we immediately took the document down and fixed it as soon as we could." He added: "That doesn't excuse the mistakes, of which I take responsibility."

Democrats pressed Blanche on a series of controversies from his months as the department's No. 2 official. He was questioned about the proposed $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, which the department shelved after bipartisan backlash, and about the administration's pardons for defendants charged in the January 6 Capitol riot. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., pushed Blanche on whether a settlement agreement shielded President Trump from tax liability. Blanche responded that Trump has no protection under the agreement for taxes that have not yet been filed.

The math on the committee is unusually tight. The recent death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who had chaired the panel, left Judiciary Committee Republicans with just one vote to lose in advancing Blanche's nomination to the full Senate. That narrow margin has handed outsized leverage to a handful of members and raised the stakes of every exchange, with Republicans looking for reassurance that Blanche would run the department independently and Democrats casting him as too close to the president he once represented in court.

Blanche sought throughout the hearing to present himself as a career prosecutor committed to restoring trust in the Justice Department, telling senators he understood the gravity of the role and vowing to regain their confidence. Whether that performance is enough to satisfy wavering Republicans and win confirmation remains to be seen; a committee vote is expected in the coming weeks. The outcome will determine who permanently oversees an agency that has been at the center of some of the most divisive fights of Trump's second term.