CBS News97%
New Mexico attorney general accuses Justice Department of hindering Epstein probe 71%
7/17/2026, 12:43:27 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Burden of Proof, and Availability Heuristic, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 35.1% saturation with 331 hits. Analysis detected 2,349 faulty-reasoning hits from 944 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 64.5% and a BS Rank of 71% (5,169 of 17,632 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 70.70% of the video peer group.
Welcome back to the Take coming to you from New York.
Today is the second day of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing.
He cannot lose a single Republican vote on the Judiciary Committee and have his nomination move from that committee to a full Senate vote.
It can get to the Senate in other ways, but that would be kind of a big deal.
Blanche has long faced criticism about his handling and some would say mishandling of the Epstein files.
He's meeting with survivors today.
That's happening we believe right about now.
Epstein survivor Danielle Bensky testified today why she thinks Blanche should not become the nation's next Attorney General.
Listen.
>> Todd Blanche has been unwilling to protect Epstein survivors personal information.
And he has been resistant and to investigate the people who helped Epstein and Maxwell commit those crimes.
We need an Attorney General committed to ensuring that everyone who facilitated Epstein's crimes is held accountable.
>> Joining me now, New Mexico Attorney General Torres.
He's currently in a standoff with the Department of Justice over its failure to release unredacted versions of the Epstein files the Attorney General is seeking in a matter very much a part of the New York New Mexico story with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Mr. Attorney General, I'm glad to have you here.
I want to play another soundbite from Danielle Bensky about what the release of the Epstein files in an unredacted way did to her and other victims by releasing information that made them more vulnerable than they already were.
Please listen.
>> Todd 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.
Instead of treating this release as its own violation and holding the man who led it accountable, you have a decision on whether you place him in the highest law enforcement position in this country.
>> Mr. Attorney General, when the Department of Justice put out a statement today saying they would try to have a meeting between Todd Blanche and survivors.
It said this, "And we have always encouraged any victim with new evidence of a crime to speak with the FBI."
Mr. Attorney General, I'm not an expert, but that seems to put the burden on survivors and victims, not on the investigatory apparatus of the federal government.
>> Yeah, that's right. And and I think it's unfortunately part of a pattern where there really has not been enough respect and consideration for the dignity of victims.
Um you know, I've had the opportunity to meet with some of them to talk to them about our investigation in New Mexico.
And one of the commitments that we've made is to try and make sure that no matter the outcome of that investigation, we will listen to them, we will talk to them, and we will meet them where they are.
We will put in the time and the effort and the energy to go and find them, which is exactly why we've been asking for access to the unredacted and the complete universe of the Epstein files.
>> What do you want and what are you not getting yet from the Justice Department?
>> So
>> And what is it about?
>> Yeah, so it 152 days ago, we asked Todd Blanche and the Justice Department for access to the complete Epstein files.
And the reason for that is that there have been based on the open-source records nearly 14,000 references to Zorro Ranch, that's the property in New Mexico. And yet throughout the files that we can see through that are publicly available, a lot of those documents are redacted.
So names of individuals
>> Blacked out.
>> That's right. Either blacked out in whole or in part. And so what we believe is that there are opportunities to follow new leads, identify potential co-conspirators, witnesses who have not come forward and testified, given us information, a whole range of of information that could help advance our our criminal investigation.
And unfortunately, the the Justice Department, specifically the Southern District of New York, told us just 2 days ago that they wouldn't cooperate with that request and they wouldn't be providing that access.
>> Todd Blanche could solve this, could he not?
>> That's exactly right. He can solve this with the stroke of a pen.
Um and and we frankly been given the runaround.
First, we were told to go back to the District of New Mexico, submit a two-week request.
We did that.
Um what they returned to us were 31 pages of publicly available information, news clippings.
>> Non-responsive.
>> Non-responsive. Things that that don't help us move this investigation down the road.
And then to hear from the Southern District that we wouldn't be getting access.
So, we have set a deadline for the end of the month.
We will consider um you know, a continued lack of cooperation as a denial of that request and then we'll take further legal steps if we have to do that.
>> Do you believe you would have standing under the Epstein law to sue the federal government over this?
>> Well, we have um an opportunity to litigate this potentially under, you know, different violations of their own policies and regulations.
My hope is is that we won't have to get to that.
Now, one of the the encouraging things that
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.