In a September 2 filing, attorneys for Katie Phang accused Attorney General Todd Blanche of continuing to resist a federal court order requiring greater transparency in the government’s release of Jeffrey Epstein-related records. The dispute centers on handwritten FBI interview notes underlying four FD-302 reports that referenced President Donald Trump, as well as a detailed accounting of redactions made under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Phang’s lawyers argued that the Justice Department has offered shifting and unsupported reasons for withholding the handwritten notes, first claiming they were substantially duplicative of already released reports and then raising concerns that reviewing handwritten material could risk exposing victim information. The filing countered that argument by pointing out that DOJ had already released nearly 100 sets of handwritten notes connected to other FBI reports, undermining the suggestion that the material at issue could not safely be reviewed. Phang asked Judge Emmet Sullivan to order DOJ to turn the unredacted notes over to the court within five days for an in-camera review, allowing the judge himself to determine whether they are truly duplicative or contain information that should remain protected.
The filing also sharply challenged DOJ’s claim that it had complied with the law’s requirement for a redaction log by publishing a six-page letter in the Federal Register. Phang’s attorneys argued that the letter merely satisfied a separate provision requiring a general summary of withheld material and did not meet the statute’s requirement that every individual redaction be accompanied by a written justification. They asked the court to order Blanche to publish a complete, legally compliant redaction log within ten days. The filing also rejected the government’s attempt to slow the proceedings while it pursued what it called a “protective” appeal, noting that DOJ had not actually filed a substantive motion demonstrating why a stay was warranted. Phang’s lawyers argued that administrative inconvenience or staffing burdens do not amount to irreparable harm and maintained that the government should not be permitted to use an appeal to postpone compliance with either the Epstein Files Transparency Act or Judge Sullivan’s existing injunction.
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