Tillis demands Blanche meet Epstein survivors before attorney general vote

Sen. Thom Tillis tied Todd Blanche’s path to attorney general to a meeting with Jeffrey Epstein survivors, saying he would not vote to advance the nomination unless Blanche met with them within the next two weeks. The North Carolina Republican said he was trying to "get to yes," but made survivor outreach a condition as Blanche faced the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.

The demand came during a hearing that brought Epstein survivors into the confirmation fight in a visible way. Dani Bensky, a survivor of abuse by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, asked other survivors to rise as they held up photos of their younger selves. Bensky said Blanche has never responded to them, a detail that sharpened the confrontation over whether a top law-enforcement nominee would engage directly with the people harmed in one of the most notorious abuse cases in recent memory.

Blanche was already under pressure on several fronts. Senators questioned him about the Justice Department’s independence, his loyalty to President Donald Trump, Jan. 6 cases and the Epstein files. The hearing also revisited the Justice Department’s creation of a $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, a program that was later scrapped after bipartisan backlash. Those exchanges put Blanche’s approach to the department itself under scrutiny while he serves as acting attorney general and waits for confirmation.

Tillis had earlier said he had a "positive predisposition" toward Blanche, but had not made a final decision before the hearing. His new condition carried outsized weight inside the Judiciary Committee, where Chair Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin are managing a nomination that had looked headed for an easier path before the hearing sharpened opposition. Tillis’s insistence that Blanche sit down with Epstein survivors made their testimony more than a symbolic moment. It turned survivor access into a concrete factor in whether the committee can move one of the administration’s most consequential nominees toward the Senate floor.