Attorney General Todd Blanche’s Justice Department keeps stiffing a federal judge over the Epstein files, and a legal expert sees where the road ends.
Lawyer and analyst Michael Popok said in Saturday’s episode of his podcast “The Intersection” that the DOJ is “moving ever so inexorably towards contempt” in Katie Phang’s lawsuit against Blanche after the department blew yet another court deadline.
“I’m waiting any moment now for…a very unhappy Judge Sullivan to throw the book again at the Department of Justice,” Popok said, referring to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who’s presiding over the case.
Popok said the DOJ was effectively “telling Judge Sullivan to go pound sand.”
The deadline at issue covered the administrative record, which Popok described as the paper trail behind the DOJ’s claim that it had released all of the Epstein files.
“The administrative record would be all of the emails and communications about how they made decisions about which documents to produce to the public and which ones to not produce, including with Donald Trump’s name,” he said.
According to Popok, the DOJ has argued it doesn’t have to hand anything over because Phang, a journalist, likely lacks standing and the Epstein Files Transparency Act doesn’t give private citizens the right to sue.
Popok said the argument ignores how Phang built her case.
“She didn’t sue under the Epstein Act. She sued under the Administrative Procedure Act because the DOJ is an agency, and any agency of the federal government that makes a final action, anybody can sue if they’ve been injured,” he said.
Sullivan has already ruled that Phang has standing, according to Popok. “It may get reversed on appeal, but it hasn’t yet,” he said.
Popok credited the lawsuit with surfacing material that might otherwise have stayed buried, including roughly 50 pages of FBI handwritten notes about an allegation that Trump attacked a 13-year-old girl. Trump has denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Phang, in an interview Popok aired on the episode, said the files contain leads the government chose to ignore.
“On each of those pages there’s either available information that this administration, this DOJ, this FBI has intentionally refused to chase down,” she said.
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