By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) – Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will meet with victims of Jeffrey Epstein and their lawyers on Thursday as he faces a contentious vote on his nomination in the Senate, according to two people familiar with the situation.
It was not immediately clear how long the 4:30 p.m. meeting at the Justice Department would last.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis, a key vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday that he would not vote to advance President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general unless Blanche meets with victims of Jeffrey Epstein and their lawyers.
Blanche likely cannot advance without Tillis’ vote.
“I expect that meeting to occur before I’m willing to vote out of this committee,” Tillis said during the second day of Blanche’s confirmation hearing to become the nation’s top law enforcement officer. “I’m trying to get to yes, but this is a very important part of getting yes.”
Tillis is one of two key Republican senators threatening to derail Blanche’s confirmation. Democrats on the committee have pledged to uniformly oppose Blanche, which means the acting attorney general cannot afford to lose even one Republican lawmaker.
A group of Epstein survivors have said that they requested meetings with Blanche for months but have not heard back. Blanche said on Wednesday that a deputy could meet with lawyers for Epstein survivors as soon as “today,” but said he could not meet with them directly.
The Justice Department and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the first day of his confirmation hearing, Blanche, who is the acting attorney general, faced difficult questioning and criticism from Democrats and some Republicans over the Department of Justice’s rollout of the Epstein files, which left some victims’ names and photos unredacted. Lawmakers also grilled Blanche on the creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and resolution that gave Trump and his associates broad tax-audit immunity.
Both of those deals emerged from a settlement agreement over a $10 billion lawsuit Trump brought against the IRS.
The fund and the tax immunity resolution drew bipartisan fury, as lawmakers argued that both were an effort to enrich Trump and his allies. In the wake of the backlash, Blanche told lawmakers that the fund was dead, but he has since declined to kill the fund in writing.
Republican Senator John Cornyn told Reuters on Wednesday that he was still weighing his vote because it was not clear to him that the fund had really been abandoned.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff; Editing by Alistair Bell and Mark Porter)
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