Cory Booker

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker alleged Thursday that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about not being legally allowed to meet with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.

On Blanche’s second day of his confirmation hearing, there was witness testimony from Epstein survivor Dani Bensky.

“How do you feel knowing that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went to meet with her [Ghislaine Maxwell] for two days and then gave her a cushy transfer, while he would not meet with you, and then lied to this committee yesterday, saying he was barred by the law, which a first-year law student can know the difference of?” Booker asked Bensky. “How did that make you feel?”

Maxwell was Epstein’s associate who is currently serving time in prison for sex trafficking. Last year she was moved to a minimum security federal prison in Texas.

“It’s devastating for survivors,” Bensky answered Booker. “And I’d like to add to that that Annie Farmer, a victim and survivor who testified in Ghislaine Maxwell’s hearing, actually wrote a letter to Todd Blanche immediately after that and requested a meeting with him, regarding the move and the transfer and she’s never heard anything back at all.”

On the first day of his confirmation hearing, Illinois Senate Democrat Dick Durbin got into a back and forth with Blanche about whether or not he would meet with the victims of Epstein.

Blanche said that he was prohibited from meeting with them directly, but if they were represented by counsel, they would work with the counsel.

Some Epstein victims came out opposed to Blanche last week because their names were exposed in the files that the Department of Justice released. Blanche apologized for the mistakes on Wednesday.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 after he was convicted of sex trafficking minors.