The liberal media has had a field day denouncing the DoJ's limited release of Epstein files. The fiesta raged on during Monday's edition of Deadline White House on MS NOW--until Ken Dilanian showed up to -- shockingly -- rain on the parade.
Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Dilanian has historically been a dependable toer of the liberal line, as exemplified here and here.
So it was all the more stunning to hear Dilanian say:
"I'm no defender of the Pam Bondi, Donald Trump Justice Department, but I have a little sympathy for the massive undertaking that is ongoing at the Justice Department. They have more than 200 lawyers . . . going through and trying to redact this stuff.
"And they're also making the point that you can have concerns about what they're doing, but, you know, in the Biden administration, Democrats were not calling for the release of these files. And even though the survivors wanted transparency then as well.
"This is a recent phenomenon. It's tinged with politics. Everybody's trying to exploit it for their own ends. And the DoJ is, from their point of view, they're trying to push this stuff out. And from their point of view, this is more transparency in the Epstein matter than we've seen in, in many many years, as dissatisfied as some people are."
Yikes! An MS NOWer not-defending-defending Pam Bondi and her DoJ? Adding that the Trump administration is being more transparent than Biden's? Heresy to the max!
Alicia Menendez, subbing for Nicolle Wallace, immediately sprang into damage-control mode, teeing up Andrew Weissmann:
"I wonder if that defense from the DoJ passes the smell test?"
Weissman was the lead prosecutor in the failed Mueller investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the man who ripped Robert Hur for truthfully describing Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Weissmann's response was thus as predictable as Dilanian's remarks were startling:
"It doesn't."
Here's the transcript.
MS NOW
Deadline White House
12/22/25
4:09 pm ETALICIA MENENDEZ: I want to bring into our conversation justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian. Also with us, former top official at the Justice Department, legal analyst Andrew Weissman, and political analyst, former Senator Claire McCaskill is here. It is good to see you all.
All right, Ken, I already asked the Congressman, but I want to ask you, any sense of what, if anything, we can expect today from DoJ?
KEN DILANIAN: No, you know, Alicia, they are not reading out their process to reporters at all. It's been a black box.
I have to say, obviously, there's a lot of people who are concerned about it. At the same time, and I'm no defender of the Pam Bondi, Donald Trump Justice Department, but I have a little sympathy for the massive undertaking that is ongoing at the Justice Department. They have more than 200 lawyers. Many of them are in the National Security Division, so one wonders what cases they were pulled off to do this. But more than 200 lawyers going through and trying to redact this stuff. They say, pursuant to law. Again, we don't know what their process is.
And, you know, they're also making the point that, you know, you can have concerns about what they're doing, but they're making the point that, you know, in the Biden administration, Democrats were not calling for the release of these files. And even though the survivors wanted transparency then as well.
This is, it's a it's a recent phenomenon. It's tinged with politics. Everybody's trying to exploit it for their own ends. And, you know, the DoJ is from their point of view, they're trying to push this stuff out. And from their point of view, this is more transparency in the Epstein matter than we've, we've seen in, in many many years, as dissatisfied as some people are.
MENENDEZ: Andrew Weissmann, as a one-time paralegal, I have great empathy for what it is that doc review actually requires. And yet, I wonder if that defense from DoJ passes the smell test?
ANDREW WEISSMANN: It doesn't.
