Former federal prosecutor blames Trump DOJ’s 'inexcusable sloppiness' on 'brain drain'

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance issued a scathing takedown of President Donald Trump's Department of Justice for the rollout of the investigation files around the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

One allegation came from Danielle Bensky, who spoke Wednesday with MS NOW host Alicia Menendez. Bensky said she saw that Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre's name was exposed in the documents, but the former Duke of York, Prince Andrew — who has since been stripped of his title — was redacted. Survivors' names were to be redacted while co-conspirators should not have been blacked out under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The only exception to the law was if there is an open investigation.

"It's inexplicable sloppiness," Vance told Ali Vitali. "This is a known problem with redaction. So it shouldn't have been difficult to make sure that all of the material that was due to be redacted was protected."

Internet sleuths on Tuesday claimed they were able to highlight blacked out from the release and copy-and-paste the disclosures into a text document.

This level of sloppiness comes, Vance said, from the "brain drain at the Justice Department." There has been such a significant purge of staff that anyone who knows how to handle such a large production of documents.

"So this should be routine and standard," Vance said. "It's simply one more highlight of how this Justice Department is conducting itself. And beyond that, I think it's important to always note the context, which is that FBI files, when the FBI compiles a file during an investigation, it's not vetting material before it includes it inside of the file."

It means, Vance said, that when agents collect documents, interviews and other things that might be used in court, the FBI is not authenticating them.

"So your caveat that people should be very cautious consumers of material that's being released," Vance warned.