[0:00]Good morning. We are coming on the air on a busy Friday morning with breaking news at the Justice [music] Department. That's where Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch is holding a news conference and NBC News has learned from two senior administration officials the focus is on
[0:11]the Epstein files. Let's listen in. >> Responsive materials under the act. We are also releasing today a letter we are transmitting to Congress and various
[0:21]internal protocols associated with our review. I want to take a moment to thank the professionals at the Department of Justice who met twice daily, sometimes
[0:33]more, for the last 75 days to get to where we are today. the leadership teams from the office of the attorney general, from the deputy attorney general's office, the associate
[0:44]attorney general's office, the criminal division, the national security division, the FBI, the Southern District of Florida, the Southern District of New York, and the Northern District of New York all gave
[0:56]up many hours every single day on top of their other, of course, full-time obligations to fulfill the President Trump's promise of transparency to the
[1:07]American people. I also want to thank the more than 500 lawyers and professionals across all those divisions that I just mentioned
[1:16]and others who worked uh long days, nights, weekends, Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, nights, weekends, and holidays to complete this production.
[1:28]These highly trained reviewers spend their careers putting bad guys in jail and affffectuating the mission of the department.
[1:37]and to a person. They work tirelessly to protect victims and comply with the act since its passage. So, thank you to all of them.
[1:47]Today, we are producing more than 3 million pages, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
[1:57]In total, that means that the department produced approximately three and a half million pages in compliance with the act. Just a quick note about the the videos
[2:08]and images. The 2,00 videos and 180,000 images are not all videos and images taken by uh Mr. Epstein or someone
[2:18]around him. They include large quantities of commercial pornography and images that were seized from Epstein's devices but which he did not take or
[2:28]that someone around him did not take. Some of the videos though and some of the images do appear to be taken by Mr.
[2:35]Epstein or by others around him. Now I want to talk for a few minutes about the department's document
[2:44]identification and review protocols. It consisted of multiple layers of review and quality control designed to ensure
[2:53]compliance under the act and protect uh victims. On top of the review protocols that the department had in place, the United States Attorney's Office for the
[3:04]Southern District of New York employed an additional review protocol to ensure compliance with a court order requiring United States Attorney Jay Clayton to certify that [snorts] with respect to
[3:16]certain materials, a large quantity of the materials, a rigorous process was undertaken to protect victims against any clearly unwarranted invasion of their personal privacy.
[3:28]>> [snorts] >> The department's collection effort resulted in more than 6 million pages being identified as potentially responsive, including department and FBI emails, interview summaries, images,
[3:39]videos, and various other materials collected and generated during the various investigations and prosecutions that the act covered. We aired on the side of overcolcting of
[3:51]materials from various sources to best menure ensure maximum transparency and compliance which necessarily means that the number of responsive pages is
[4:01]significantly smaller than the total number of pages initially collected. That's why I mentioned a moment ago we're releasing more than 3 million pages today and not the the 6 million
[4:11]pages that that we that we collected. I want to address what we didn't produce. The c the categories of documents withheld include those permitted under
[4:22]the act to be withheld. Files that contain personal personally identify information of victims or victim's personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would
[4:33]constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Any depiction of CSAM or child pornography was obviously excluded. anything that
[4:44]would jeopardize an active federal investigation. And finally, anything that depicts or contain images of death, physical abuse, or injury, also not produced. Although
[4:55]the Although the act allows for withholding for items necessary to keep secret in the interest of national security or foreign policy, no files are being withheld or redacted on that
[5:07]basis. Further, as we previously stated in our December 19th letter of last year, the department withheld or redacted files contain covered by various privileges as
[5:18]we always do, including deliberative process privilege, work product privilege, and attorney client privilege. As you all know, under the act, the department must subsequently submit to
[5:28]the House and Senate committees on the judiciary a report listing all categories of records released and withheld, a summary of redactions made, including leg the legal basis for such redactions, and a list of all government
[5:40]officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the act. We will do so in in due course as required under the act. >> [snorts]
[5:51]>> I want to talk for just a moment about the redactions that will be obvious to anyone who reviews the materials that we just produced today. In addition to the documentary
[6:02]redactions which includes personal identifying information, victim information and other privileges, there is extensive redactions to images and videos.
[6:13]To protect victims, we redacted every woman depicted in any image or video with the exception of of Ms. Maxwell.
[6:24]We did not redact images of any men unless it was impossible to redact the woman without also redacting the man. To [snorts] this end though, um, and to
[6:35]ensure transparency, if any member of Congress wishes to review any portions of the responsive production in any unredacted form, they're welcome to make arrangements with the department to do
[6:46]so, and we're we're happy to do that. I want to talk for a minute about something that is important. Every single day of the year, the
[6:56]Department of Justice investigates and prosecutes those who abuse and traffic young women and children. Just last year, the FBI loc located over
[7:07]2,700 victims of child exploitation. The Department of Justice found and terminated 3.8 million dark web
[7:17]pedophile accounts. In August, we charged 11 defendants for extensive sex trafficking in Los Angeles of illegal immigrants and underage women.
[7:28]Last month, we charged five men who were engaged in a sadistic extor extortion network of deranged young men abusing women. Over the past um several months last
[7:39]summer and into the fall, we executed Operation Restore Justice, rescuing 205 child victims and arresting 293 offenders. I point this out because I
[7:50]take umbrage at the suggestion which is totally false that the attorney general or this department does not take child exploitation or sex trafficking
[8:00]seriously or that we somehow do not want to protect victims. We do. There are some select members of Congress and some in the public eye,
[8:10]including those most critical of our efforts at full transparency under the act, who remain silent as to all the work that we have done and continue to
[8:20]do every day in this space [snorts] while quickly pointing a finger at the attorney general or this department because we were careful in our review of
[8:31]millions of pages of documents over the past two months. The attorney general, the director of the FBI, and our partners throughout this administration work hard every
[8:42]single day to protect the most vulnerable among us. With [snorts] the production of this magnitude, mistakes are inevitable. We of course want to immediately correct
[8:52]any redaction errors that our team may have made. And so, the department has established an email in inbox for victims to reach us directly to correct redactions and any concerns when
[9:03]appropriate. that's that's been in existence uh since December. Um [snorts] and and we've been doing that since then. Finally, a very small portion of the documents collected pursuant to the act
[9:15]include materials that a law firm produced to the SDNY in 2019 pursuant to a grand jury subpoena. This was during the criminal investigation of Ms. Maxwell.
[9:26]We determined it would be prudent to seek an order from the court in the Southern Disc of New York seeking production of these materials subject to the protective order in that civil lawsuit. To that end, the department has
[9:38]filed that motion with the appropriate judge in the SDNY. And if that motion is granted, we'll release those materials with appropriate redactions um immediately.
[9:48]Today's release marks the end of a a very comprehensive documenta document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act. The
[10:00]department has engaged in an unprecedented and extensive effort to do so. After submitting the final report to Congress as required under the act and publishing the written justifications
[10:12]for redactions in the Federal Register, the department's uh obligations under the under the act will be will be completed. I'm I'm happy to take any
[10:21]questions anybody has about about that. >> Todd, I'd like to ask you about this and I have a Minnesota question for you. On the Epstein release today, it was
[10:33]recently made public that Gileain Maxwell claims more than two dozen men signed secret agreements with the federal government not to be prosecuted.
[10:43]What is your reaction to that and what does that mean for her case? >> I read an article that described I I wasn't aware that it was actual men that she's claiming. I thought it was
[10:54]accompllices, which I I'm not sure if if that's a reference to some of the financial institutions or or other individuals that >> 25.
[11:04]>> So, yes, I don't I don't I don't have a reaction to to her filing. I can tell you that we reviewed, as I just described, every single piece of paper
[11:14]that we have associated with um with these investigations, Mr. Epstein and and Ms. Maxwell and um and to the extent that such arrangements exist, I'm not
[11:26]aware of them. >> And on to Minnesota, if I may ask you real quick, that's in the topic in the headlines right now. There's new video of a man believed to be Alex Prey who's spitting, who's kicking out a tail light
[11:38]of a uh law enforcement vehicle? Does [clears throat] that change the perception of a potential DOJ investigation? Is there going to be a civil rights investigation into his
[11:48]death? Where does that land now that that video is out? Then I have a quick followup on that. >> I don't So, look, I don't think a a single video should change any perception the Department of Justice may
[11:59]or may not have about that tragic occurrence last Saturday. We've said repeatedly over the past week that of course this is something that we're
[12:09]investigating and and we are. Um that's what we would we would always do in circumstances like this. And so there's an investigation that's ongoing which I'm not going to talk about. But just
[12:21]look, the the the problem is an initial reaction to a particular video one or another. You're talking about one that happened apparently some days ahead of
[12:31]of last Saturday. Um there it's an investigation. So an investigation necessarily means um means just that. It means talking to witnesses. It means um looking at documentary evidence, sending
[12:43]subpoenas if you have to. and and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has um the best experts in the world at this that they've been doing it for decades and and so I expect that that
[12:54]investigation will will proceed with that with those parameters in mind. >> Are you looking at a nexus of left-wing groups? This DOJ said that that's something that you guys were concerned
[13:05]about. Are you following money? Are you looking at a potential that all of this may be related somewhere? >> I mean, yes. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Attorney General.
[13:16]You said in your remarks that you've withheld some documents because of ongoing investigations. I've done this long enough to know you can't comment on ongoing investigations, but can you say
[13:27]a little bit more because, as you know, the department has been criticized for not bringing charges against more people. Are there still open investigations related to Jeffrey
[13:37]Epstein? So, what I was laying out in my comments is the the statutory um what the statute talks about about what we can withhold and the reasons we can
[13:47]withhold it. I wasn't pointing to any particular I wasn't trying to be koi or otherwise suggest there's some investigation. Um as you all know um Jay
[13:59]Clayton in in New York is is is in charge of any potential investigations and and I'm not going to comment beyond that on that. You were referring to Clayton. >> Excuse me. >> You were referring to Clayton's investigation. >> I wasn't referring to anything. I was
[14:10]just saying that Congress in their wisdom um allowed us to withhold documents if there were ongoing criminal investigations. Um that's one of the four reasons I wanted to make clear with
[14:21]respect to any national security information that we were not withholding. Um there's not some trunch of super secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we're that we're withholding. or or actually not
[14:32]withholding anything based based upon um NDI. >> Deputy Attorney General Pranch, thank you for your time. Two questions for you. Number one, pushing politics aside and everyone else aside. Some of the
[14:44]victims of Epstein have expressed frustration with the entire process. I want to give you the opportunity to speak directly to them. >> Well, I don't I don't know what you're what you're speaking to. I mean, um if
[14:55]there's frustration with quote the entire process, uh same here. I mean, you have a situation where uh for many many years, nobody even breathed the word about Jeffrey Epstein and then all
[15:07]of a sudden it was all anybody would talk about um going into the la last spring and summer culminating in the passage of the Transparency Act and President Trump has said for years, what I think everybody will find to be
[15:19]exactly true. Um which is detailing his relationship and lack thereof with Mr. Epstein and and what he thought about Mr. Epstein and and notwithstanding what
[15:29]the department has been saying for a very long time, um we're still where we are today. Listen, victims of of Mr. Epstein um have gone through um
[15:39]unspeakable pain and and there's nobody that that that should say anything differently. And and I I to the extent that there's frustration, um I I understand where that comes from just
[15:51]from what we know about Mr. Epstein. um I hope that the work that that the men and women within this department have done over the past two months um
[16:02]hopefully is able to bring closure. Um I think that um what we what we told our reviewers is that that was the goal. You know there was there's this mantra out
[16:13]there that oh you know the Department of Justice is supposed to protect Donald J. Trump and that's what we were telling. That's not true. That was never the case. Um we are always concerned about the victims. When we said that we were
[16:24]not legally allowed to release documents, that's a fact. Um that was true. It remains true today. And then with the acts passage, we are able now and directed to release documents, which
[16:35]is what we are doing. Um but but so hopefully hopefully some of those frustrations are now eased. Listen, we any victim that wants to speak with the
[16:46]department has a has a has done so. Hopefully. if not they should. Um the the prosecutors from this case in New York um have have given hundreds if not
[16:57]thousands of hours to working with victims and and that's what we do every day and that's what we did in this case as well. So, >> and very quickly, can you assure can you assure the American public that
[17:08]President Trump, like every other prominent person whose name came up in relation to the Epstein files that all documents, photos, and anything relevant to him connected to the case are being
[17:20]released? >> I I mean, yes, I can assure that we complied with the statute. We complied with the act. And there is no um we did not protect President Trump. We didn't
[17:31]protect or not protect anybody. I mean, I think that that we that there's a a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. Um, and and
[17:43]there's it's not there's nothing I can do about that. But President Trump, of all the people in Washington DC and around this country that have said for years the same consistent message about
[17:54]Jeffrey Epstein is President Trump. Um, and so there's not been a change of course or anything. And certainly his direction to the American people and the Department of Just sorry, his direction
[18:05]to the Department of Justice was to be as transparent, release the files, be as transparent as we can, [snorts] and that's exactly what we did. >> I want to clarify your remarks on the
[18:15]Alex Py killing. Are you saying that the Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into his death? >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, and and I know there's a lot of there's been a lot of discussion among the media around
[18:26]that, but but just think about what that means. All that that means is that DHS, as they've as the secretary has said, is is conducting an investigation, as they should and as they do every time there's
[18:38]there's a tragic event like this, and the FBI in their role, which is a separate role from DHS, is is also take looking into it and conducting
[18:47]investigation. And and that's not um that shouldn't be treated as as as making news. It's it's we we've said that for a week and and it remains as true today as it was last Sunday when I
[18:58]said it. >> Two questions for you. One on topic and one separate ultimate. >> Yeah. Two questions for you. One on topic and one separate. On topic, do you uh have any information that you could just share because 3 million documents
[19:10]is a lot for people who are watching this at home. Are there any new names or new people, public people uh in positions of power who you're found in these filings? I >> I don't have anything to share about
[19:21]what's new or not new. And there's No, I don't have anything to share about that. >> And to follow up on that, uh do you have a reaction to the arrest of Don Lemon overnight? >> Do you have a reaction to what
[19:30]>> to Don Lemon's arrest overnight? >> Do I have a reaction to it? I don't know what that means. What are you looking for me to do? Jump up and down? No, I don't have a reaction to it. I don't know that his that the charges are
[19:41]unsealed yet. Um so no, I can't I'm not going to comment on that. >> Uh thank you. Um um you said this is the end of the Epstein uh of your review of
[19:50]the Epstein files. So just to clarify, are is the public going to learn the identities of the men who abused the girls with the information that you're
[20:02]releasing? And if not, why not? And then I have a quick followup. I mean, you just baked in an assumption into your question that I have never said and I don't know to be true. Is the public
[20:11]going to learn about men that abuse these girls? Like, what does that mean? I mean, I understand what that means. >> Well, I mean, there the men who abused
[20:23]the young women through Epstein's um through >> we said in July um and it remains as true today as it was in July. um if we had information, we meaning the
[20:34]Department of Justice about men who abused women, we would um we would we would prosecute them, right? We talked about the work that we're doing. That's why I said that there's that I said this
[20:45]earlier. There's this built-in assumption that somehow there's this hidden trunch of information of men that we know about that we're covering up or that we're not we're choosing not to
[20:55]prosecute. That is not the case. I don't know whether there are men out there that abuse these women. Um, if if we learn about information and evidence that that allows us to prosecute them,
[21:05]you better believe we will. But but I don't think that that that the public or you all are going to uncover um uh men within the Epstein files that abuse
[21:16]women, unfortunately. >> Okay. And just a followup on the investigation into um uh federal federal chairman Jerome Powell. Is the Justice Department What's the status of that
[21:27]investigation now? Now that President Trump has nominated a new Fed chair, are you is is the Justice Department looking to bring a close to the investigation into Chairman Pow as soon as possible?
[21:39]>> I don't have a comment on that. um on on the subpoenas that were issued. I don't think the timing of President Trump's decision to nominate somebody is is is
[21:49]is a controlling factor in any investigation. >> Hi, I just wanted to um follow up on Alana's question. Um so you're saying that the shooting investigation of u
[21:59]Alex Prey is now a civil rights investigation. You're saying you're implying that that's always been the case. Um, can you also say if has that what about
[22:09]the shooting of Renee Good? I mean, is she is that why or why or why not is that a civil rights investigation? >> I didn't say it was always a case. I said it's the same thing that we said as of last Sunday as with respect to last
[22:20]weekend. Um, there are thousands unfortunately of law enforcement events every year where somebody is shot. um
[22:30]the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice does not investigate every one of those shootings. There has to be circumstances or facts or maybe unknown facts, but
[22:41]certainly circumstances that warrant an investigation. So, when we talked about when I talked about last weekend and when others have talked about this week,
[22:52]the fact that President Trump has said repeatedly, of course, this is something we're going to investigate. That's what I meant about what we're doing. It doesn't mean that every time that there's a federal officer related
[23:03]shooting um that that that's something civil rights takes up. It depends on the circumstances. >> Follow up on that. Um can you just I know you can't be specific about details of the investigation, but can you kind of just characterize the scope of the
[23:15]prey investigation, what kinds of things that they'll be looking for and who will be involved? >> Well, I mean it's an investigation. So what do we think we're looking at? We're looking at everything that that would
[23:27]would get shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened. And that's like any investigation that that the Department of Justice and the FBI does
[23:38]every day. It means we're um looking >> You were listening to Detect Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch discussing a major release of Epstein files today. We should note those files have been
[23:49]released and posted online. Our team is looking through them now. Lance says the DOJ releasing 3 million pages, 2,000 videos,
[23:59]180,000 images. Let's bring in Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker. Kristen, just help us understand the significance of this moment today and what is standing out to you.
[24:10]>> Well, Joe, a couple of things standing out to me. You have the deputy attorney general effectively confirming that the Justice Department has now released the
[24:20]remainder of the documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein files. Remember the deadline was more than a month ago. You heard the deputy attorney general defend
[24:31]the process, say this was an all handson deck effort by DOJ and effectively saying that they were pouring through these documents extremely carefully to
[24:42]make sure that they were protecting the identities of any potential victims, saying that they did redact the images of the women in the files, but not the men unless they couldn't do so without
[24:53]protecting the women's images. So, I thought that that was very notable. Another very notable exchange. You heard him pressed repeatedly on whether the Justice Department took pains to try to
[25:05]protect President Trump. He pushed back against that narrative saying that look, they had released everything in these files. There were some headlines as it
[25:14]relates to the death of Alex Prey. of course that observer in Minneapolis who was shot and killed last weekend saying that an FBI civil rights investigation
[25:25]has now been opened into that death. So a significant headline on that. It is certainly notable though that the Epstein files have been released amidst all of the unrest in Minneapolis. Joe,
[25:36]>> yeah, and a lot of headlines there. We know journalist Don Lemon, an independent journalist, former CNN anchor, has been arrested in association with a protest that took place recently at a Minnesota church. And we haven't
[25:48]even heard yet if he's been asked about Luigi Manion. Of course, the death penalty now off the table in that case after a judge dismissed two federal charges. A lot to cover. That's going to
[25:58]conclude this NBC News special report, but we are going to continue our coverage on our streaming channel NBC News Now. We'll also have more on your local station online at NBCNews.com
[26:09]and a full wrap-up tonight on NBC Nightly News. I'm Joe Frier. Good day. We thank you for watching and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch
[26:21]live on our YouTube channel.