Epstein survivor calls Blanche "walking perjury"

What kind of reaction did you get, especially among Republicans, if you'd be willing to summarize? Yeah, I mean, mixed. I think we basically just stormed their office, so there was nothing set up for us at all. But we just went to their office and talked to many staffers and just said, can you please make sure that your senator gets this book? And if they have any questions, please feel free to reach out to survivors. We're happy to have meetings. And we've had quite a few really wonderful meetings on both sides, so we're hoping to continue. When you say investigatory leads, you're not a law-enforcement professional, and neither am I. But there are things that strike you as something that anyone, a commonsensical person would look at and say, that ought to be followed up. Is that what you're telling me? Exactly. Yes. So something that we've seen quite a lot is that Todd Blanche is basically walking perjury. He has said that there are no leads anywhere and that there are no credible leads. Well, we know that to not be true. And, obviously, we are not law enforcement, but there are many 302s, many people who have given testimony.

Quickly, a 302 is? Oh yeah, it's the survivor testimony that the FBI takes. It's like the initial intake. And so a lot of what you're seeing and a lot of the failed redactions that happened came out of those 302s. So, for instance, my 302 had my name, my phone number, my address, where I worked, where I went to school, all that information exposed. However, certain things were redacted that were very strange. Like my nickname, Dani, was redacted. And so it just showed-- and that happened multiple times, right? So we're talking three different batches of release, three different times that I was exposed. And I'm just one. There were so many.

Quick reminder, lots of survivors had their personal information exposed. Lots. Meanwhile, in this redacting process, lots of other names and places and associations that ought not to have been redacted were. Yeah. I think the plainest example is Virginia Giuffre's deposition. So in that, we saw Andrew's name redacted, but her name was exposed-- Former Prince Andrew. Former Prince Andrew is redacted in that document, yeah. But the victim isn't. The victim isn't, and her children are not. Those are underage-- those are minors, right, that were exposed. And so that's a great example of-- it was very intentional that they were protecting the perpetrators. I saw one recently where Jeffrey's name had been redacted, and Jeffrey's email was redacted. And yet there were victims in that information still. So you've seen this slowdown, this blocking, for the moment, of Todd Blanche's ascension-- he's the deputy attorney general. He's not like he doesn't have any power. He's got plenty of power-- but from becoming full attorney general. But it's not over this. It's over other matters, which are also important. Do you feel that there is a lack of emphasis on this particular part of Blanche's real-time record within the Justice Department? Yeah, and I mean, yes, I do think that talking about the slush fund is a way of not talking about the Epstein files. And I do think that--

Does that feel calculated to you? Yeah, it does. And I also think that we have been pretty persuasive on the Hill. It felt like we are having really good conversations with senators. And I will say we had a really great conversation with Cornyn's Judiciary staffer this week. Senator John Cornyn's staff. Yeah, and it was a very human conversation. And we were saying, look, he's obstructing justice. He is perjuring. The perjury is evident. He said in testimony I saw at the House Judiciary meeting and gave testimony, right? And the day before, Todd Blanche had testified, and he had said that within 24 hours, if a redaction was improper, they had taken it down and put it back up, which is wholeheartedly not true, and my lawyers can attest to that. And so that's just a very blatant lie that's very easily catchable, but there are so many that, through time, we've seen him really lean into these lies. So I'm not sure why that isn't a bigger issue for these senators. But I do think having those conversations, like the one that we had with John Cornyn's staffer, and we're really hoping that we can get in front of senators Tillis and Cornyn to have these deeper conversations and talk to them about this meeting that we had with Todd Blanche that was just so highly disappointing and unsatisfactory.

Why? That meeting was very condescending. It was very-- we went in with a plan. We always do. We're a group of advocates that really come in and want to get to the heart. We want to know why redactions were the way that they were. We want to know why victims were exposed, perpetrators were concealed. We want to know about the investigative leads. Why isn't a single lead being pursued when James Comer himself-- that's his own party, right? James Comer himself--

Head of the Oversight Committee. Yes, and he's been wonderful. Chairman Comer has been lovely with working for us, and he has said that there are investigative leads to follow. And, in fact, he made two referrals to the DOJ. So we wanted to know, why weren't those referrals looked at? Why aren't we pursuing those? And he said that they came in the wrong form, and, basically, everything that we said was spun. It was all about the semantics of language and how we were approaching it and what did he say and what he didn't say versus--

It felt adversarial? Beyond. Yes, 1,000% He's a lawyer. I mean, it felt like we were being met with a lawyer. We were not meeting with somebody who is the head of our Department of Justice. So I think the American people really need to dig deep and see, do you want more of a cover-up? Do you want more criminal behavior? Or are you looking for actual truth, transparency, and justice for survivors in this country?

Dani Bensky, I appreciate you-- Thank you so much.

--for coming in. Thank you, and thank you for that perspective. And I'm sure you will stay at it, as other survivors have a track record-- Yes. --of staying at this.