By Jack Phillips

Interim Attorney General Todd Blanche dismissed speculation that Pam Bondi left her position as attorney general in connection with how she handled the release of case files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, just hours after he was tapped to be the interim attorney general, Blanche said that the Epstein files should not be the focus of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“A lot of what you just said about what happened to the attorney general is simply not true,” Blanche told Fox News host Jesse Watters, responding to a comment about how Bondi handled the files.

Blanche added that he never heard President Donald Trump tell him that Bondi leaving “had anything to do with the Epstein files.”

During his tenure as the deputy attorney general, Blanche led the DOJ’s task force that handled the release of files related to Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell under the “Epstein Files Transparency Act” that was passed in Congress and signed into law by Trump last year.

That included his overseeing the release of more than 3 million pages of documents, including photos and videos related to Epstein and Maxwell.

As the files were being released, starting in December 2025, Blanche defended the DOJ’s work and said that a significant amount of effort was needed to redact the names of victims who were included in the documents before they could be released to the public. Several members of Congress, including Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), had accused the department of slow-walking the files’ release.

Blanche also interviewed Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges, as part of an ongoing investigation related to Epstein in July 2025. Transcripts of the interview were released in August 2025, and Maxwell said at one point that she does not believe Epstein killed himself in the Manhattan jail cell where he was being held in 2019.

Aside from the release of the files, Trump had suggested on multiple occasions that Bondi prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, or Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

When asked about Trump’s calls to prosecute those officials, Blanche said that he believes “the president is frustrated, everybody is frustrated, because what we saw happen for the past four years, is unforgivable and can never happen again.”

“And so certainly I don’t mind the frustration,” he added in the Fox News interview. “I appreciate the frustration, because we do have to make sure that what happened for four years never happens again, and we don’t talk about investigations, but I can tell you that the Department of Justice is working hard every day.”

As the interim attorney general, Blanche can serve for up to 210 days. If the president decides to nominate him, Blanche or another nominee would have to be confirmed in the Republican-led Senate.

In her own statement on Wednesday, Bondi said the job was “the honor of a lifetime” and added she would be working to transition the position over to Blanche.

She highlighted the administration’s record on crime and other topics, saying the DOJ has “secured the lowest murder rate in 125 years, secured first-ever terrorism convictions against members of Antifa, shattered domestic and transnational gangs across the country, taken custody of more than 90 key cartel figures, and won 24 favorable rulings at the Supreme Court.”