代理司法部长托德·布兰奇周四在司法部会见了几名已故性侵犯者杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的幸存者。
布兰奇说会议持续了一个小时。
布兰奇说:“我对他们说了我已经公开说过的同样的话——公开地、反复地说，这就是我想要的，司法部的每个人都想起诉我们能够起诉的任何对爱泼斯坦受害者犯下罪行的人。”。“所以我鼓励他们，就像我一直公开说的那样，如果他们有信息，他们应该去美国联邦调查局。”
布兰奇补充说，受害者“必然感到沮丧”，但“没有任何喊叫”
布兰奇说:“这并不完全是友好的，因为他们想要的东西，我认为我给不了他们，这是某种形式的正义。”“我希望能够以起诉的形式伸张正义，也许我们可以在某个时候提起诉讼。我不知道。”
布兰奇说，他让美国联邦调查局特工和一名专门从事性交易和人口贩运的检察官参加了会议，一些受害者的律师也远程参加了会议。
布兰奇称这次会议是“富有成效的”,并说他大部分时间都在倾听他们关心的问题。
当被问及幸存者是否向他提供了任何新的信息时，布兰奇说他们没有，但他指出，他不认为这是会面的原因。
“会议的目的只是听取意见。他们没有为这次会面做好准备，我也没有，”布兰奇说。“但我确实对他们说，他们要么有新的信息，要么想再次谈论他们过去谈论过的内容，所以我们可以再看一眼或第三只眼睛。我鼓励他们这样做。”
此次会议之前，参议院司法委员会的一名关键共和党成员需要他的投票才能确保布兰奇的确认，因为下一任司法部长表示，他将要求布兰奇在投票支持他之前与爱泼斯坦的受害者坐下来。
北卡罗来纳州共和党参议员托姆·蒂利斯(Thom Tillis)周四早些时候在一次听证会上宣布了这一新情况，其中一名证人是爱泼斯坦受害者达尼·本斯基(Dani Bensky)。
面对一个潜在的艰难的确认，布兰奇在周四早些时候做了一个简短的尝试来会见幸存者。
他和他的团队来到参议院司法委员会办公室，他们在那里坐了大约半个小时，但没有人加入他们。
“我重新安排了我的日程，试图与他们会面，”布兰奇在离开办公室后告诉ABC新闻。“我一直在这里等着。没有成功，所以我们打算看看是否有办法在今天晚些时候或不久的某个时候见面。”
布兰奇说:“这个事实没有什么新闻价值，因为司法部总是会与受害者或他们的代表会面，如果这些受害者或他们的代表有证据表明有人犯了罪，不管是与杰弗里·爱泼斯坦有关，还是与杰弗里·爱泼斯坦有关的任何人，或者任何其他人，我们当然会继续前进，进行调查和起诉。”
本斯基在周四的听证会上作证说，布兰奇从未回应过多次试图让他坐下来讲述她的故事。
“布兰奇愿意说他将会见(爱泼斯坦受害者)和律师——我理解律师必须在场的限制，”蒂利斯说。“我希望在我投票退出这个委员会之前能有这样的会面，我正在努力争取同意。但这是获得“是”的一个非常重要的部分。”
“根据布兰奇先生昨天所说的，如果他说他今天会做，那么他肯定会在接下来的两周内做，这应该没有任何理由，”蒂利斯补充说。
布兰奇在周三的确认听证会上告诉立法者，他很乐意与受害者会面，但最初他说如果他们由法律顾问代表，他不能亲自与他们会面，后来在听证会上纠正了自己的说法。
“我从来没有说过我不能和他们见面。我说过，如果他们有代理人，我必须通过律师会见，”布兰奇说。“但是当然，我可以会见他们。我是美国代理司法部长，所以是的，我可以。”
Epstein survivors meet with acting AG Blanche at DOJ
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met Thursday with several survivors of deceased convicted sex offenderJeffrey Epstein's crimes at the Justice Department.
Blanche said the meeting lasted for an hour.
"I said to them the same thing that I've said publicly -- publicly, repeatedly, which is that I want, and everybody at the Department of Justice wants to prosecute anybody that we can for committing crimes against any of the Epstein victims," Blanche said. "So I encouraged them, like I've been saying publicly, that if they have information, they should they should go to the FBI."
Blanche added there was "necessarily frustration" from the victims, but "there wasn't any shouting."
"It wasn't all cordial, because there's something that they want that I don't think I can give them, which is some form of justice," Blanche said. "And I want to be able to give justice in the form of prosecutions and maybe we could do a prosecution at some point. I don't know."
Blanche said he had FBI agents join in the meeting as well as a prosecutor who specializes in sex trafficking and human trafficking, and that some attorneys for the victims joined remotely.
Blanche called the meeting "productive" and said he mostly spent the meeting listening to their concerns.
Asked whether the survivors provided him any new information, Blanche said they didn't, but he noted that he didn't see that as the reason for the meeting.
"The purpose of the meeting was just to listen. They weren't prepared for this meeting, nor was I," Blanche said."But I did say to them to the extent they had either new information or wanted to talk about what they have talked about in the past again, so we can take a second look or a third look. I encouraged them to do that."
The meeting came after a key GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee whose vote is needed to secure Blanche's confirmation as the next attorney general said that he will require Blanche to sit down with Epstein's victims before he can vote for him.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced the new condition earlier Thursday during a hearing where one of the witnesses was Epstein victim Dani Bensky.
Facing a potentially rocky confirmation, Blanche made a brief attempt to meet with the survivors earlier Thursday.
He and his team arrived at a Senate Judiciary Committee office where they sat for about half an hour, but no one joined them.
"I rearranged my schedule to try to meet with them," Blanche told ABC News after leaving the office. "I've been here waiting. It didn't work out, so we're going to see if there's a way we can meet either later today or sometime soon."
"There's nothing newsworthy about this fact because the Department of Justice will always meet with victims or their representatives, and if those victims or their representatives have evidence that anybody committed a crime, whether it has to do with Jeffrey Epstein, anybody else that was associated with Jeffrey Epstein, or anybody else, we will of course move forward and investigate and prosecute," Blanche said.
Bensky testified in Thursday's hearing that Blanche has never responded to repeated attempts to reach him to sit down and recount her story.
"Blanche was willing to say that he would meet with [Epstein victims] and counsel -- I understand the restriction that counsel has to be present," Tillis said. "I expect that meeting to occur before I vote to vote out of this committee and I'm trying to get to yes. But this is a very important part of getting to yes."
"There should not be any reason why, based on what Mr. Blanche said yesterday, if he said that he would do it today, then he can certainly do it over the next two weeks,"Tillis added.
Blanche told lawmakers during hisconfirmation hearingWednesday that he would be happy to meet with victims but initially said he couldn't meet with them personally if they were represented by legal counsel, before correcting himself later in the hearing.
"I never said I can't meet with them. I said if they were represented, I had to meet through counsel," Blanche said. "But of course, I can meet with them. I'm the acting attorney general of the United States, so yes, I can."
