Epstein Survivors Sink Blanche and his Nomination

Summary

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Legal AF (MeidasTouch)

Episode Summary: "Epstein Survivors Sink Blanche and his Nomination" (June 20, 2026)

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Main Theme and Purpose

This episode, hosted by Michael Popok, delves deep into the crumbling nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General, scrutinizing his alleged role in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal cover-up. The hosts and guests analyze the latest developments at the intersection of law, politics, and justice for Epstein survivors, particularly in light of new evidence and high-profile meetings on Capitol Hill. The episode features firsthand perspectives from survivor Danny Bensky and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, both of whom directly connect Blanche to institutional failures and the ongoing call for accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Epstein Files and Todd Blanche’s Disqualifying Baggage

• [02:23] Michael Popok introduces the episode by highlighting new reporting tying Todd Blanche, the acting head of the DOJ, to the Epstein files cover-up and his impending confirmation hearing.
• Blanche's involvement in the “Situation Room” discussions allegedly prioritized protecting powerful men over achieving justice for Epstein survivors.

2. Alan Dershowitz, Bill Gates, and the List of Suspected Abusers

• [03:10-05:41] Michael Popok details Alan Dershowitz’s role as Epstein’s lawyer and his continued efforts to discredit survivors. An incendiary recent clip of Dershowitz demonstrates his ongoing smear campaign:
  • Quote [05:10] Dershowitz: “Their narrative is that every single woman who came forward is a victim and a survivor. Total nonsense. The vast majority of them were transactional sex for money, people who made their own decisions. [...] There are some real victims, but they’re very few, the very underage ones.”
• Popok describes Bill Gates’ denial of involvement with Epstein, referring to suspicious emails and the impact on his personal life, including Melinda Gates’ reactions.

3. Meetings with the House Oversight Committee and Evidence Submission

• Survivors, led by Danny Bensky, met with House Oversight Chair James Comer, presenting new evidence from the DOJ's Epstein files, including a July 2025 spreadsheet listing 14 men linked to the abuse (Names include Dershowitz, Clinton, Trump, Bill Gates, and more).
• Popok contextualizes how these documents expose a high-level cover-up:
  • Quote [07:40] Michael Popok: “Now we know that in July of 2025, the Trump senior leadership, led by Todd Blanche and J.D. Vance, were meeting in the Situation Room at the same time, trying to figure out not how to release all the files, not how to do justice and dignity for the Epstein survivors, but how to conduct a cover up at the highest levels.”

4. Interview: Survivor Danny Bensky’s Experience and Frustrations

• [09:00] Danny Bensky shares mixed feelings of validation and rage after the confirmation that a cover-up occurred and highlights congressional inertia:
  • Quote [09:16] Bensky: “We’re in Congress, talking to Republicans and Democrats alike and sharing our stories... and it makes me feel like, you know, in the House and in the Senate, it doesn’t really matter what we do because we’re always stopped by the DOJ.”
• She directly implicates Todd Blanche:
  • Quote [10:32] Bensky: “When you have somebody like Todd Blanche at the helm of DOJ, it’s hugely problematic. Right? He has the President’s best interest. He does not have the American people’s best interest at heart... He needs to be called in and questioned. He needs to be in front of the Oversight Committee to answer.”
• Details about botched redactions and Blanche’s alleged role in mishandling the rollout of the files are discussed.

5. Specific Evidence and Accountability

• [12:08] Bensky & Popok confirm survivors submitted partially redacted emails and spreadsheets to the Oversight Committee, including names of powerful possible perpetrators.
  • Quote [12:26] Popok: “The list includes Bill Clinton, Les Wexner, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, and President Donald Trump. Is that accurate?”
  • Bensky affirms and adds Bill Barr to the list.
• Bensky points out that internal FBI documents proved investigations had started but were apparently stopped.

6. Comer’s Reaction to Survivors

• [13:08] Popok: asks how Chairman Comer reacted to being confronted by authentic survivors with hard evidence.
• [13:32] Bensky: “The fact that he acknowledges that there are real true investigative leads was everything to me and I think to the people in that room.”

7. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Blanche’s “Stinking Pile of Baggage”

• [16:57] Senator Whitehouse outlines the mountain of evidence and unanswered questions dogging Blanche’s confirmation:
  • Quote [17:21] Whitehouse: “You’ve got him being thrown under the bus by Pam Bondi as the person who botched the release of the files... A thousand or so suspicious activity reports from treasury about the Epstein accounts. And even though they’re called suspicious activity reports, nobody at the Department of Justice under Blanche ever looked for anything suspicious in them.”
  • Whitehouse also highlights uninvestigated witness interviews, including a girl alleging Donald Trump assaulted her at age 15.

8. Call to Action and Looking Ahead

• [18:00] Michael Popok: The confirmation hearing is projected for July 15. Listeners are urged to contact their senators, especially those on the Judiciary Committee, demanding a thorough vetting of Blanche and accountability for his actions.
  • Quote [18:13] Popok: “Todd Blanche should be cross examined to within an inch of his professional life before he leaves that room. No stone unturned, no question unasked.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• [05:10] Alan Dershowitz: “The vast majority of [survivors] were transactional sex for money, people who made their own decisions... There are some real victims, but they’re very few, the very underage ones.”
• [07:40] Michael Popok: “The Situation Room... trying to figure out not how to release all the files, not how to do justice... but how to conduct a cover up at the highest levels.”
• [09:16] Danny Bensky: “It doesn’t really matter what we do because we’re always stopped by the DOJ.”
• [10:32] Danny Bensky: “When you have somebody like Todd Blanche at the helm of DOJ, it’s hugely problematic... He needs to be called in and questioned.”
• [17:21] Senator Whitehouse: “...Nobody at the Department of Justice under Blanche ever looked for anything suspicious in [Epstein’s suspicious activity reports]. They weren’t investigated.”
• [18:13] Michael Popok: “Todd Blanche should be cross examined to within an inch of his professional life before he leaves that room.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:23 | Intro to Blanche’s nomination and new Epstein-related reporting | | 05:10 | Dershowitz’s dismissive comments about survivors | | 07:40 | The Situation Room and claims of high-level DOJ cover-up | | 09:00 | Danny Bensky’s validation and frustrations with Congress/DOJ | | 12:08-12:43 | Discussion of evidence submitted: names, emails, spreadsheets | | 13:32 | Comer’s recognition of real investigative leads | | 16:57 | Senator Whitehouse’s detailed breakdown of Blanche’s liabilities | | 18:00 | Popok’s call to action & outlook on confirmation hearing |

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Tone and Language

Throughout, the language is urgent, direct, and prosecutorial—mirroring the hosts’ backgrounds as trial lawyers. The tone is empathetic when platforming survivor voices and biting when assessing potential wrongdoing by officials.

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Conclusion

The episode serves as both a detailed briefing on the crumbling case for Todd Blanche’s Attorney General nomination and a call to action for listeners. With compelling primary accounts, sharp legal analysis, and a clear timeline of events, Legal AF exposes the institutional obstacles still facing Epstein survivors and underscores the stakes of the forthcoming Senate hearings.

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Transcript

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[Michael Popak]

Is Todd Blanche's nomination to be the Attorney General hanging on by a thread? And will the Epstein scandal and its cover up in the Situation Room? And otherwise led by Todd Blanche be his final undoing. We've got some new reporting related to James Comer on the Oversight Committee, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, and what he did after he met with those brave Epstein survivors, including Danny Bensky, who I recently interviewed. In fact, I interviewed back to back Danny Bensky and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse about what the Epstein scandal will do to Todd Blanche's candidacy and whether the Epstein survivors can ever obtain justice while Todd Blanche is heading or inside the Department of Justice. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal af. And let's get down to the new reporting. Alan Dershowitz. Yes, Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard. But more to the point, besides working on the OJ Trial, he was also the personal lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein, helped negotiate that sweetheart deal back in 2007 and 2008 that kept him on the street conducting a child sex trafficking ring while he got a sweetheart deal to to spend very little time in the Palm Beach County, Florida jail. That was all because of this guy named Alan Dershowitz. Alan Dershowitz, who was originally accused by Virginia Joffrey of having sexually abused her. Now, she eventually retracted that. The problem with with Virginia Joffrey's testimony is she was abused by so many men and predators within Jeffrey Epstein's inner circle that she got confused. That doesn't mean that Dershowitz is covered himself with any glory. Julie K. Brown, the intrepid reporter for the Miami Herald who broke the story about Epstein, she on one of our shows said it was Dershowitz himself who abused and attacked people who were Epstein survivors, accused them of being transactional opportunists. We're talking about girls and young women. In fact, he still does that. I'm going to show you a clip of a recent interview with Dershowitz. In the last three days, Committee chair

James Comer to ask about you and your willingness to testify. And I got this response. Quote, the House Oversight Committee will speak with anyone who has information about the federal government's handling the Epstein and Maxwell cases and their crimes, end quote. He also sent me a phone number to give to you if you want to testify. I won't give it over the year, but I'd be happy to. So it seems like I may have gotten you a date to come to Capitol Hill.

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I'm thrilled.

[Michael Popak]

I'm happy.

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They don't want me to testify because they have a narrative. Their narrative is that every single woman who came forward is a victim and a survivor. Total nonsense. The vast majority of them were transactional sex for money, people who made their own decisions. They were adults, they were 25, they were 30. Some of them then went out and recruited other people for more money. Some of them never even met Jeffrey Epstein. There are some real victims, but they're very few, the very underage ones.

[Michael Popak]

But after meeting with Comer, meeting with a series of Epstein survivors, including Danny Bensky, who I interviewed in the last several days, he's now issued a demand that Alan Dershowitz come forward and testify before the House Oversight Committee. They just got done with Bill Gates. And Bill Gates has got a big problem. He spent 40 years building up his career and in one relationship, showing his true colors, destroyed it. Nobody believes Bill Gates, his opening statement or testimony that he. I wasn't on the island, I wasn't at the ranch, I wasn't at the apartment. You were on the plane. You were on the plane. And why would Jeffrey Epstein write an email which, which you allege was unsent that suggested that you contracted a sexual, sexual transmitted diseases from Russian women and girls that were part, that were conscripted and captured by Epstein to be a part of a child sex trafficking ring? Why would that be in there? You know who doesn't believe him? His former wife, Melinda French Gates. She said that as soon as she met Epstein, she was so creeped out by him that she had nightmares afterwards and always suspected that her husband was doing bad things and inappropriate things with Epstein. That was one of the reasons for the, for the divert divorce. Now let's turn to the meeting with James Comer. Little reported private meeting. At least he's conducting meetings as the chair of the House Oversight Committee. In attendance, Danny Bensky Epstein SURVIVOR and what we know from the meeting, both from Danny Bensky and otherwise, is that they made a case. They literally presented emails and evidence from the Epstein files, from the very files that Donald Trump's own administration has released, asking the pertinent question. There was a spreadsheet created in July of 2025 to go after 14 different men, including on the list, Dershowitz and Clinton. Whatever happened to it? Why didn't the FBI continue to pursue it? Now, that date on the timeline is really important because now we know that in July of 2025, it's all putting the pieces together. Now, the Trump senior leadership, led by Todd Blanche and J.D. vance, were meeting in the Situation Room at the same time trying to figure out not how to release all the files, not how to do justice and dignity for the Epstein survivors, but how to conduct A cover up at the highest levels. It's such a cover up that one of the participants in it, or unwilling participants in it, Dan Bongino, then the deputy director of the FBI, said this is going to be Donald Trump's Iran Contra. If it's Donald Trump's Iran Contra cover up, then it falls at the feet of Todd Blanche, who's now going to be asked those hard questions in his confirmation hearing. Here's Danny Bensky in a recent interview with me in the last couple of days about that very meeting and her belief that there's no justice while Todd Blanche is still inside the Department of Justice. Play the clips. One though, you said you felt sort of a bit of relief that you weren't crazy. And the things that you said were going on in the COVID up have now been confirmed and revealed. Talk me through that for you.

[Danny Bensky]

I mean, it's amazing and validating on one hand because it absolutely confirms everything that we already knew. We already felt that, right? That we're like, they're sitting on all this information. Why hasn't one investigation even be started? Wasn't even started yet. But there's also a piece of it that's like just absolutely infuriating. And it feels like we're banging our head against the wall because we're in Congress. All the talking to Republicans and Democrats alike and sharing our stories and saying there's a lot to see here, please do something. And it makes me feel like, you know, in the House and in the Senate, it doesn't really matter what we do because we're always stopped by the doj. And so it really isn't partisan. Like, we had an amazing meeting with Comer this week and it was one of those meetings that he heard us, you know, and I really like respected his chief of staff. We've had many conversations with him before and he walked away and he actually did really listen. And I think there was an act of good faith that happened after that by calling Alan Dershowitz in. And he did say that it won't just be transcribed, it will be filmed, it'll be under oath. And those are things that we were really pushing hard for. So I do feel like he was listening and heard us. But we get into this vicious cycle, I think, of we feel heard, we feel like we're going to get somewhere. We call these people in, they perjure themselves and then we're like, okay, we caught them in a lie. What do we do now? And it's like, well, we can pull them back in and it's like, okay, pulling them back in, then what does that do? And it's like, well, there's always, the last stop is always going to be the doj. And so when you have somebody like Todd Blanche at the helm of doj, it's hugely problematic. Right? Like, he has the President's best interest. He does not have the American people's best interest at heart. And he's proven that he was in that situation room. He needs to be called in and questioned. He needs to be in front of the Oversight Committee to answer. You know, how, like, we also know that he was responsible for so many botched redactions and how this rollout even happened. And botched is like an understatement, by the way. But he's responsible for a lot of this body. I'm not letting her off the hook. She definitely had something to do with this, too. But, but we know that Todd Blanche had a lot to do with this. And he moved Ghislaine Maxwell. So, like, there are so many things here that come back to Blanche, and now he is the nomination. And that's like, he, he's so unfit to be the Acting Attorney General of our country. I don't, I can't even. My words fail me. So.

[Michael Popak]

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a disqualifying. It would be a disqualifying event in any other, any other life in time. This is the CNN reporting about the meeting that you've identified that you went to. And if there's anything not right about the reporting, you, you, you see if you can correct it. How's that sound?

[Danny Bensky]

Yeah.

[Michael Popak]

It says the group which you were a part of brought documents from the DOJ's released Epstein files, including an email detailing a list of men from the late convicted sex offenders orbit, as well as Joffrey's 2015 testimony to investigators to help the Republican chairman refine his own probe and to argue that there are allegations against powerful men that the Justice Department could pursue. Is that about right?

[Danny Bensky]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Popak]

And, and, you know, it's interesting. It says that the survivors presented coma a partially redacted set of emails from July 2025 that showed FBI officials were aware of an email discussing building out a spreadsheet of allegations against more than a dozen men.

[Danny Bensky]

Yes.

[Michael Popak]

Take these names and build out a new spreadsheet, said the redacted individual in one of the emails. And the list includes some who previously testified in the committee, like Bill Clinton and Les Wexner, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and President Donald Trump. Is that accurate?

[Danny Bensky]

Yes. And there's also like Bill Barr is on that list. There are quite a few people on that list that really, I mean, you name it, it's like, it's everything that we've been saying, but this is where everybody screams at us all the time. Give us a list. The list, the names. Like, we're like literally just like open the files and read the files. And so this email is one of those files that has, you know, and it was internal. In the FBI, they were already starting to investigate them. What happened is the question.

[Michael Popak]

And what was his reaction when he was confronted with this with a group of very authentic survivors, you know, who are, you know, right. That he can't, he can't just ignore them away. He can't hope, he can't just bear, you know, you are real people who are really sexually abused and are here for justice. What was his reaction like his body language or his facial expressions?

[Danny Bensky]

I mean, the fact that he acknowledges that there are real true investigative leads was everything to me and I think to the people in that room.

[Michael Popak]

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[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Senator Whitehouse, you know, you start with the Epstein files, which is still a hugely charged issue among Republicans. And you've got him being thrown under the bus by Pam Bondi as the person who botched the release of the files. You've got a thousand or so suspicious activity reports from treasury about the Epstein accounts. And even though they're called suspicious activity reports, nobody at the Department of Justice under Blanche ever looked for anything suspicious in them. They weren't investigated. And you've got which the victims are watching very closely. You've got the FBI notes of the interview with the girl who at age 15 said she was physically assaulted by Donald Trump and sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. And we know that those documents are out there and they haven't been produced. So all of that and more makes the Epstein thing saga, as I said, a stinking pile of baggage for Blanche to take through the hearing.

[Michael Popak]

Now let's pull it all together. It looks like it's going to be about July 15th or so for the Blanche confirmation hearing. We will put it up live as a live stream. We'll get a couple hundred thousand people, I assure you, over on Legal AF YouTube channel. And from now until then, we need to work the senators. You need to write to your senator and tell them, especially if they're on the Judiciary Committee, what you want to have happen. Todd Bland should be cross examined to within an inch of his professional life before he leaves that room. No stone unturned, no question unasked, and not just. And don't let him off the hook if he starts pointing his crooked finger at you. And don't let him get away with some sort of burned book like Pam Bondi. We've seen him. We've seen him. He wants this job desperately. He'll say and do anything to get it. But we got to be prepared for it. And the question is, is Todd Blanche's role, including his volunteering to do a, as Sheldon Whitehouse told me to do, a little footsie. A little footsie with Ghislaine Maxwell up at a Tallahassee prison before she was rewarded with, what is it now? A puppy. A puppy in a book club in a cushy low risk penitentiary, Club fed in Texas. Who's responsible for that? Everything. Epstein, according to Pam Bondi, was the responsibility of Todd Blanche. So it lays at his feet. We'll continue to follow it all right here, the way we always have a Midas touch and Legal af Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal af. Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called Wait for it Morning af. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AO are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got AD free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.