Epstein Survivor Tells All as Hidden FBI Tapes Surface

0:00Popok:Welcome to a special edition of Legal AF. The Block Blanche movement is gaining a head of steam. And at the front of the line, leaning the charge, of course, are the Epstein survivors. Because who else can embody all the things that are wrong and corrupt about the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche than the Epstein survivors and how they were treated? We have the opportunity to see the rebuttal, if you will, to Todd Blanche's testimony being provided by Danny Bensky, who's been on the show with us before. And Danny Bensky also met with Todd Blanche, a begrudging, patronizing, put-upon Todd Blanche, who met with the Epstein survivors, I guess to check a box, to try to gain a vote, but for no other good reason.

0:53Popok:And when I saw that Danny was part of that group that met with Todd Blanche the second day of his confirmation hearing or that night, and knowing Danny Bensky, I said, you know what? I think we need some briefing for our audience about what went down. And that got reinforced when I read the 441-page response of Todd Blanche and his team, his handlers, to questions being asked about meetings involving the Epstein survivors. And I'm not sure he was telling the truth in his responses to people like Chuck Grassley. And I want to put some of it through a lie detector test in the form of Danny Bensky.

1:31Popok:That and reporting that's not getting enough coverage, which is the admission that the FBI has training videos that they use to train human beings to not only do the redactions about the Epstein files, but also to flag Donald Trump's name. something that when Todd Blanche was asked about it, he seemed to have convenient amnesia. Let's bring in Dani Bensky. Hi, Dani. Hi. How are you, Michael? Thank you for having me. I'm doing great. We're so proud of everything that you do in representing your own authentic truth about being a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. And also on behalf of the Epstein survivors, I was not surprised that you were chosen to be the one to do what I call the rebuttal to Todd Blanchett and for good reason.

2:18Popok:And before we kick it off live here, I do want our audience to be reminded about what, you know, sort of, it was a nice long speech and appropriate. Well, I'm going to take a couple of clips so people understand what this is all about. And that led, frankly, that so resonated in the room that even Republicans said, we got an Epstein problem in Todd Blanchett's got to be fixed. Let's play Danny Bensky at the Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearing for Todd Blanchett. His actions have destroyed survivors' trust. According to public reporting, Mr. Blanchett spent approximately nine hours meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell.

3:00He did not even spend nine minutes meeting with a survivor. Afterward, Maxwell was transferred to what many have described as a summer camp prison. We learned all of this through the news. Imagine what that feels like as a survivor to sit there if you were exploited by Ghislaine Maxwell and you're hearing this for the first time with no explanation, no outreach, and no transparency from your... And to add insult to injury, the information that Todd Blanche gathered in the White House Situation Room last summer to curb the political fallout from the Epstein files was absolutely abhorrent. Instead of following investigative leads, our government treated and continued to treat this as a political crisis that needs to be managed.

3:45In our nation, everyone deserves equal protection under the law. Todd Blanche has been unwilling to protect Epstein survivors' personal information. And he has been resistant to investigate the people who helped Epstein and Maxwell commit those crimes. We need an attorney general committed to ensuring that everyone who facilitated Epstein's crimes is held accountable. Please, I implore you, please.

4:12Popok:Okay, Danny. I mean, not a dry eye in the house, I assure you, in our audience. And thank you again for having the bravery and the courage to do that. Let's start there. Why did you want to be in the room and speaking directly to the members of the Senate Confirmation Committee about Todd Blanche? Yeah, I think it's hugely important for survivors to be in front of the Senate and front of congressional leaders and in front of the DOJ because it is a very human story. And at the end of the day, it is about humans' rights and about victims' rights. And it's not about this political weaponization.

4:49And we face that so much of the time. We've heard so many times from the president, you know, these young women, these girls are a democratic hoax or these women are a democratic hoax. and that there's nothing to see, nothing to look at, all of those things that are so demoralizing. And from our own DOJ, when Pam Bondi wouldn't turn around, all of these things that really make us feel like we're not human. And also, I think the senators and congressional reps, they need us in the room. They need us to be able to share these really authentic stories to understand the importance and the weight of this sex trafficking ring.

5:28Popok:Did you, I don't know where you were in the room or where Todd Blanche was in the room during your, but did you, did you catch, could you see Todd Blanche at all? He wasn't there. He wasn't even there. He didn't, yeah, he was not there. That says it all, I think, Danny, the fact that he wasn't even there to hear your story directly. I think that says it all. What do you think the impact on the room was, whether it was, you know, you had multiple levels of audience for this history, fellow survivors, the American people, the elected officials and staff. What do you think the impact on the room was?

6:02I'm hoping that people understood the weight of this story, because a lot of the time I think we were desensitized in a way to the Epstein story because we've heard it so many times. But as I like to say, there are two crimes here. The first crime is the crime of Jeffrey Epstein and the sex trafficking ring. And the second one is of the DOJ. And I think that that is we needed to get that story in front of the DOJ. And I think that it resonated with a lot of people. And I think that there was an understanding of that there are separate, that there are two separate things. And I mean, just to feel, you know, we always come back to the survivor sisterhood.

6:42And I was so nervous, to be honest. I had never been that nervous ever in my life. I used to be terrified of public speaking. It was not my thing. I was a dancer for a reason, like just didn't want to get up there at all. You would never know it, Dani, by the way. Well, now I think, thank you. I've learned. I've learned. But a huge component of this is just making sure that you're doing justice to other survivors and doing justice to the Epstein survivors in the room and just feeling their energy that morning and having them sit behind me and it was like I could feel this kind of like force um and all of my nerves were channeled in a weird way because I like I could feel Sky and Amanda are so powerful when you meet them they have this like very calming um this is Virginia Jufres family right very calming but also like you got to go fight you just got to put one foot in front of the other and you just got to do it and to then to have the other survivor sisters there as well who have huge voices like Liz Stein like Jess Michaels, right?

7:42Like these voices are incredible voices. Um, and so I just felt really empowered sitting down and I'm hoping that that was conveyed, but these are all really personal stories. And I will say like right now I'm literally in the lobby of a theater. Um, and I'm doing my, my other life, which is I'm a choreographer. And I had just flown from this program that I was working, um, at straight to this testimony and to go from really working with kids that age and understanding who I was at that age and thinking about my former self and thinking about the person that I really could have been. Um, and then to feel this level of re-victimization over and over again, um, that you kind of can't get out of, right.

8:23It just felt like there was, there's the stakes were so much higher this time. Um, and I think that people, I think people felt that I felt that from quite a few, except for, um, representative Katie Britt had an interest Senator Katie Britt had sort of an interesting pushback from me. And I had been worried about, like, feeling like I was being cross-examined. And there was a little bit of a moment there with Katie Britt where I was sort of like, where is she going with this? And that felt a little bit, like, tentative. In general, I felt like really even on the Republican side, we were seeing, you know, they are seeing survivors more.

9:04And I just would urge Tom Tillis and Senator Cornyn to really consider everything before voting.

9:13Popok:Were you surprised by Tillis's sort of, yeah, just to finish. I had ruled him out. I had completely ruled him out. So Tillis, just for our audience's sake, Tillis comes out, whether it was choreographed or not, with, yeah, I'm not comfortable with voting until Todd Blanche meets with the Epstein survivors following up on Dick Durbin's questioning about why aren't you, they're here, why aren't you meeting with them? And he heard all the tap dancing. Well, I have a sex trafficking expert and I have this and that. No, you, you need to do it. So you were caught off guard by Tillis. Your staff had to tip you off.

9:49Totally. in such a pleasant way like i think actually there's like video footage of me like i was trying not not to hide my smile because it was like oh my god he sees us he sees people we're real people to him like okay please like just for for the love of all things just really like look at the story you can't say that you want to make sure that sex offenders and sex traffickers are behind bars and not um and like vote for him right every vote for blanche is really a vote against survivors because that is at the core of this. You want to protect survivors, right? And so I was just really relieved to hear that he had said that.

10:30But my hope is still that it was not performative and that it really holds some substance and that this conversation that we had with Blanche did not suffice and that he can actually have, like, if Tom Tillis wants to call, I'm happy to talk to him. We've been trying to get in touch. You heard it here, folks.

10:50Popok:Might as touch. Tom, tell us, reach out to Danny Bensky. We'll make the connection for you. We would love that. We would love that. Because what we're referring to is that I think Todd Blanche, in his own depraved way, did you a solid. Because of who he is, because character is revealed in the dark. Yeah. He showed his true character. He had a complete unwillingness, did not have generous mind or spirit in meeting with you. It was like a schoolboy being dragged to the principal's office with a stone in his shoe. Yeah. Talk about, so it happens that day. Tom Tillis says, I want a meeting or he's not going to get my vote.

11:30Popok:And then there's a meeting. So you guys also have to remember how chaotic all of this was, right? Because I read somewhere that survivors basically, like, for lack of a better word, like, ghosted him for a while and like that's not what happened literally like it was like okay so doj wants to meet right i finished my testimony i started to walk out the door and somebody from the doj who worked with todd blanche i don't know her name but she came up to me and said doj wants to meet right now we're like great okay we're gonna just do this um let's meet todd blanche they're like oh no it's not gonna be todd blanche it'll be ali serrano she's on her way here who's the head of sex crimes and you're like that's not what we asked for and that's not what till is said right if you want if if you want to list his vote, it's going to have to be Todd Lynch.

12:13I'm sorry. You know, we've waited a long, long time for this meeting. Um, and, and that's just what it has to be. Um, and there was a lot of back and forth. And at that point, like we were all leaving testimony, people are traveling, people are moving back to their kids. Like we are not on the Hill full time. Right. Um, and so in that fray, it was sort of like, okay, he has until 2 PM. And it was like, I think the time was like 1 15 PM at that point. And it was like, okay, so we, by the time we get there. The meeting's going to be over. Like we can't assimilate that fast. And so then they were, they came back to us a little bit after and they said, okay, yeah, he can meet you at four.

12:46But I read that like, you know, that we stood him up basically. And it was like, we were just walking into a no win situation every way, shape and form.

12:54Popok:I feel good about our reporting because I actually reported it without having talked to you. I reported it the way you just said, which is you, the, the, the survivors rejected the offer to meet with somebody not named Todd Blanche until Todd Blanche appeared. And where was that meeting, Dani? It was at the DOJ. At the DOJ. So you had to hustle over to the DOJ and paint the picture in the room. Who's in the room for the Department of Justice and who's in the room for the survivors? So we have basically a room full of staffers. You have Todd Blanche sitting at the helm of the table. You've got, I believe it was, I should know this, like six survivors and then Virginia's family.

13:36And then you've got all of our council on the screen. We couldn't get it working. So it was super awkward. I'm not going to lie. We first got in there and we were like trying to get on like teams and teams isn't working. And so they had to like call three people. And so we're like sitting there like quietly and silence for 15 minutes with Todd Blanche doing nothing.

13:54Popok:That's a little, that's awkward. Awkward as can be, right? And I mean, when he came in, he was, you know, trying so hard to win us over. I think in the very beginning, he came in, he tried to shake our hand. And many of us were like, I'm not shaking your hand, right? Like, this is for we've tried to get in touch with you for the last nine months. And now you want to walk in here on a high horse and be like, you know, what do you need? You know, but so anyway, so it was the beginning of it was very sort of shifty feeling. And, you know, as we sat there and waited for technology to do the things that technology is supposed to do, you know, it felt you could feel some tension and you could feel it just sitting and building.

14:34And when we finally did start the meeting, I mean, it was I felt so disoriented after the meeting and and during the meeting, because it was like like ramming yourself into a brick wall and hoping that there was a door there. Like that was how every single turn we would basically say, okay, great. Let's start talking about the redactions. What happened? And it would be like, you know, and like, how were they mishandled? I think was the way it was phrased. And he'd be like, I never said that they weren't mishandled. I never said, and it would be about the semantics of language instead of about the actual issue.

15:15And so we saw like, okay, we're not going to get anywhere with that question. Okay. Why was Gil and Maxwell transferred? what was that about why does she have a puppy yeah i mean yes that too but we asked him why she was transferred and his response was like well you know people get transferred all the time like prisoners get transferred all the time and their victims never know and it's like that's just what happens okay next question can you get to the point like everything was like can you get that

15:38Popok:and then he started he literally said can you get to the point i mean he didn't say get to the point but he said he did say at one point um can you tell me what you're getting at he said that a few times where it was like, can you just tell me where you're getting this for the survivors? Yeah. Yeah. And this is after like, we knew that we, the meeting was only supposed to be half an hour. We ended up having almost an hour. Um, but it was like, you know, I think the people in that room are amazing advocates. The, sorry, the survivors in that room are amazing advocates. We have been in meetings with the Senate and with the house a lot.

16:14And we are very good at picking up like oh amanda just said that so now i'm gonna take if she's talking redactions i'm gonna take the maxwell transfer who-and-so is gonna take the foyer request somebody you know and we're able to like pivot around each other and in this meeting he was intentionally like sparring with people so that other people would jump in and then it was like like we couldn't get clear cohesive thought

16:38Popok:and that's where the gaslighting came in yeah he created a scrum yes intentionally intentionally And I saw some clips of you and the other survivors. Your takeaway was what? I mean, he was so condescending. My takeaway was that it was a no win for anybody ever. And that feels awful. I have never felt so low leaving a meeting. And the thing is, it's like, I understand and recognize that this is not about feelings at the end of the day, right? I do like to be very facts driven. But if you look at the facts, you're talking 1200, you know, over 1000 survivors, right, that we know of, you're talking 6 million files, you're talking, you know, I mean, countless 30 years of information, five administrations, all of this stuff.

17:29And you have one perpetrator that is dead, and one that Todd Blanche, the only one out of all of the things out of all the people, the only person that Todd Blanche has met with is in a lower security penitentiary plane with puppies right so like that just the numbers say it all and he's so much to answer for so we were trying to get any information and like it would be this small thing of um you know so we would say like okay so in the six million files and he'd be like three million and we're like three million we know that there are things that are missing and he's like and then he'd be like but we were running into the wall so we're like okay we're not going to waste our time by arguing three or six Right.

18:08That's just not worth it to us. Right.

18:10Popok:This is this is like when they ask they ask the confirmation candidates, you know, who won the 2020 election? They won't answer the question. So he has said before that they didn't produce because of duplicativeness and other reasons. Another half. There's another Epstein. That's what he gave us at the Senate at the judiciary hearing. He gave us, oh, there's another guy named Epstein. You mean to tell me there's another guy named Epstein with three million files out there? like no way like what are we talking about what what did you hear when you were you you were part of the 10 or so that were there for his first day of testimony yes yeah what what what were the major lies or untruths that he has gone back and forth about whether or not the files have been mishandled 100 million different ways right um so that is one of the biggest ones for me is like that he has said multiple times that the redactions were not mishandled and then he came back and said that they were.

19:04And now he said that he's always said that they were, and he's always survivor first. But the reality of the situation is that he, he treats us like a thorn in his side. He treats us like, oh, this, the Epstein problem that needs to go away. He is not looking at the fact that we are part of one of the largest sex trafficking rings in modern day history. That is a problem, right? Like that DOJ needs to put crime victims away. And we are, or put criminals away, put perpetrators away and be on the side of crime victims.

19:33Popok:and why can't he i don't understand i mean i understand it because he's starting from a bad place but but wouldn't it have been a more effective meeting to say i've got there's there's 25 survivors that have that have come at a 1400 or so that have come forward we're going to assign an fbi team to interview and debrief each of the 25. yeah how about that or have a team in place Right. So we actually asked him like a man. Amanda's the best in these situations. And she's like, so have you read the files? He's like, have I read the files? Have I read all three million files? No, I have not read all three million files.

20:12She's like, have you read any? And he's like, well, and we're like, is there a team reading the files? Like, how do you even know? Like, how do you know what's in them? Right. Well, and he's been harping on no investigative leads, no investigative leads. We've been going for months now to Comer's office to, I mean, if you name it, every office that you can.

20:30Popok:think of we are there with all of our little leaders with the draft indictment how about the draft indictment that had epstein's assistant in it i know well and not i mean leslie groff has lied over and over again we can prove that we've said that to so many people in congress um and everybody's yelling at us name the names but like literally we've already named everybody in virginia juffri's deposition we've named leslie groff we've named richard khan and darren indyke and like we are we have been naming these names forever and like we're like please pick one person to investigate. We don't even, we're not even asking for like everybody.

21:03We're literally asking you to pick one and show us a good, and that was what I had said, like, just show us a little good faith. That's all survivors are asking for from this meeting is like, what will you do that will show us an act of good faith? Because we're not trying to be against Todd Blanche. We are trying to find justice, right? It is not us survivors versus Todd Blanche. That's not what's happening here. You know, it is absolutely just a quest for trying to finding truth and transparency. And so it's like, we're happy to work with whoever the AG is, as long as we trust that person. But that person really needs to go to bat for us and make sure that investigative leads are being followed.

21:39And like I said that, we had said, Comer's office brought you two referrals this week based on Sarah Kellan's testimony. And they were like, well, it wasn't in a, there was no letter. He didn't send a letter. We're like, we don't care how the referral was made. The referral was made.

21:57Popok:he's insufferable he's so insufferable well i mean this is why he's a perfect compliment for his client um donald trump and and then so you so you have that danny and get no relief and get no justice like seriously michael leaving that meeting i had never felt in this in since we've started this like i i do live with ptsd from what happened to me with jeffrey like that is something that I've been diagnosed with. It's been ongoing. So like I, my body does shake like a lot of the time because the body keeps score and, and does hold that. Um, but leaving the Todd Blanche meeting, my chest locked up.

22:35I was, I was like hyperventilating when I got out of the car. I was about to go to Hallie Jackson and we were about to give an interview there. And, um, I just, I felt like, like, what was it all for today? If he was just going to gaslight us to that degree. And it just felt horrible. And it's like, if he is going to treat survivors that way in our country, like our country is made up of how many survivors in the U.S.? I mean, one in three women, and that statistic is low. So he's not the right fit.