Blanche Faces Sullivan Today; His Only Answer Is Delay
His lone filing since June asks for 60 more days. Phang's lawyers: "no basis in reality."
Todd Blanche faces Judge Emmet Sullivan at 1 p.m. today with one filing to his name since June — a motion asking for 60 more days.
Sullivan ordered the attorney general into his Washington courtroom for a status hearing in Phang v. Blanche, the lawsuit journalist Katie Phang brought to force the Epstein files into the open under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. A $1,000-a-day contempt fine sits on Sullivan's desk, briefed and waiting for his signature. The hearing runs on the court's public access line — 833-990-9400, meeting ID 712190216 — at 1 p.m. ET.
Blanche blew his June 26 deadline to answer Phang's complaint, then went silent for six weeks. On August 8 he finally filed a document. Not the answer. Not the FBI interview notes. Not the redaction log. A motion asking Sullivan to retroactively suspend the deadlines he had already missed and hand him 60 more days once the preliminary-injunction fight ends.
Phang's lawyers answered Tuesday. "Defendant's request lacks any legal basis, and it also has no basis in reality," they told Sullivan. "The Attorney General is obviously trying to delay this case."
