Only the most die-hard Donald Trump loyalist could watch Dani Bensky’s testimony at Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing and still think Trump’s lawyer should be confirmed as attorney general for all Americans.
Blanche "has been at the helm of the release of nude images of survivors, the outing of Jane Does, and the exposure of more than 100 victims’ identifying information and documents describing horrific acts of abuse, including my own,” Bensky said. Bensky, a teacher, said that if a student in her school had released such material, they would almost certainly face expulsion.
Blanche, now the acting attorney general, was the person completely in charge of the release of the Epstein files, according to Pam Bondi, the previous attorney general.
Apparently, Blanche was so preoccupied with protecting and redacting the names of potential defendants and co-conspirators that he could not be bothered with protecting the victims. Or worse.
Bensky testified that victims’ attorneys asked the DOJ to redact 350 victims’ names before the first document release. Yet she said she found her name in two places in that December release.
In the next release, in January, even more information about her was released, including her phone number, former addresses, and employment.
“When my name appeared in the third file release, it became difficult to believe that this was not intentional,” Bensky added. She said that the documents released also included “disturbing yet incomplete accounts” of her abuse. “They were available not only for the entire world to see, but my child, my students, my friends, my employers, my colleagues, and my family. It was humiliating.”
If that was not intentional, it was certainly the kind of appalling negligence that should force Blanche out of the Department of Justice altogether.
One document released by Blanche “exposed a Jane Doe who had fought for decades to conceal her identity,” Bensky said.
She called the damage done by Blanche “absolutely devastating.” Besides losing privacy, confidentiality, suffering reputation harm and “lost jobs,” the outed-by-Blanche survivors “now fear for our personal safety.”
On top of all that, Blanche repeatedly refused to meet with the survivors. He announced during his confirmation hearing that he’d do so only when it became politically expedient. “He simply ignored us for the last eight months,” Bensky said.
Meeting with survivors is not just the decent thing to do for them but for enforcing the law.
“Epstein and Maxwell did not abuse women and children alone. They did not build their operation alone,” Bensky pointed out. “Others enabled these crimes, exploited victims, and avoided accountability for decades.”
The Epstein files contain records about how Epstein’s network operated to help him sexually exploit and traffic girls and young women, and whether additional crimes can still be investigated, Bensky noted. She and the other survivors know that “because they are our stories,” she said. “Mr. Blanche knows it, too.”
Despite blowing off victims, Blanche met with convicted Epstein co-defendant Ghislaine Maxwell for a reported nine hours, Bensky further noted. Shortly afterward, Maxwell was transferred to a Camp Fed prison.
“Imagine what that feels like as a survivor,” Bensky said. She called it adding insult to injury to find out that instead of following investigative leads, Blanche went to the Situation Room to help the Trump administration treat the Epstein crimes “as a political crisis that needs to be managed.”
I have no reason to believe Todd Blanche is any kind of sexual predator. But his love for Donald Trump, his cover-up of Epstein sex traffickers and abusers, and his callous treatment and endangerment of Epstein survivors is beyond disturbing.
One thing is certain, though: Blanche should go back to sucking up to Trump on Trump’s dime and get the hell out of public office.
