Post by The 19th

Dani Bensky — a dance teacher, mother and survivor of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — testified on Thursday during the second day of a confirmation process to consider Todd Blanche’s nomination to lead the Department of Justice. In one notable moment, Bensky responded to Blanche’s claim on Wednesday that he is prohibited from meeting “directly” with some Epstein survivors. She noted news reports that said Blanche, who has served as deputy attorney general since March 2025, as well as acting attorney general since April, met with Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell for nine hours in June 2025. “He did not even spend nine minutes meeting with a survivor,” she said. Earlier in the testimony, Bensky asked her fellow Epstein “survivor sisters” to stand before the committee. “We may look like grown adults when you see us now, but we were children, young girls at the time of our abuse,” Bensky said. Bensky met Epstein when she was a 17-year-old aspiring dancer, working odd jobs to support herself through ballet school. She alleges that Epstein offered to pay for medical care to treat her mother, who had brain cancer, in exchange for sexual favors. This led to repeated sexual abuse for more than a year, she has publicly stated. Years after that trauma, Bensky told lawmakers that she and other survivors have been “revictimized” by DOJ — and Blanche is at the center of it. “Todd Blanche has been at the helm of the release of nude images of survivors, the outing of Jane Does, and the exposure of more than 100 victims' identifying information and documents describing horrific acts of abuse, including my own,” she said. Bensky added that in December, survivors asked the DOJ to redact a list of names from files related to Epstein’s crimes before they were publicly released. Still, her name appeared multiple times in the files, she said. The committee must vote to advance Blanche to the full Senate, which will decide whether to confirm him. If confirmed, he will oversee investigations, criminal charges or the release of more files. ✍: Candice Norwood, justice reporter

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