A former top White House official blamed ex-Attorney General Merrick Garland for the Biden administration’s failure to do a deep dive into files related to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Neera Tanden, a senior adviser to former President Joe Biden who became director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, threw Garland under the bus Wednesday when asked, “Why didn’t the Biden administration do anything” about the so-called Epstein files by “Bulwark Podcast” host Tim Miller.
“Any time I say anything about Epstein, they’re like, ‘Why didn’t Joe Biden’s — why didn’t Joe Biden release the files?’ And this is what I say: Have you met Merrick Garland?” Tanden responded.
“[T]he Joe Biden White House had nothing to do with enforcement on any topic,” she continued, charging that “because of the abuses of the Trump administration, the White House didn’t engage in any particular enforcement matter.”
“We barely did engage on policy with the Department of Justice. They were so arms-length to us.”
Tanden claimed the Biden White House had “no idea” what — if anything — Garland was doing related to the Epstein files, but that she believes the former attorney general couldn’t tolerate being potentially viewed as biased if he were to open more criminal cases related to Epstein’s underage sex trafficking endeavors.
“I can’t really tell you why Merrick Garland didn’t do it. I would say that he was hypersensitive about any perceptions of unfairness to a point where I think, you know, I’m not sure justice was always even done,” Tanden said.
“And I can imagine he thought, you know, after he’s doing [Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot cases] and all the conservative blowback on that — maybe he wouldn’t even look into Ghislaine Maxwell — but someone should ask him,” she added.
“I wish he had looked into it.”
A House Oversight panel subcommittee on Wednesday voted to subpoena Garland, a slew of other former top Justice Department officials, former President Bill Clinton and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton related to a congressional investigation into Maxwell – an Epstein accomplice who was convicted of sex trafficking conspiracy charges in 2022.
The DOJ and FBI announced earlier this month that they did not find any information in the Epstein files that would warrant criminal charges against third parties in the case – sparking outrage from some of President Trump’s core base of supporters.
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