Justice Department blocked release of secret Epstein drug probe file, Sen. Ron Wyden says

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has accused a top Justice Department official of blocking the release of a document related to a secret investigation into drug trafficking and prostitution led by Jeffrey Epstein.

Wyden said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche blocked the release of an unredacted document. Memorandum 2015 prepared by the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement and Organized Crime Task Forces, an entity responsible for coordinating complex drug and money laundering investigations within government agencies.

CBS News reported in February that the heavily redacted memo included in the more than 3 million Epstein files released in January shows that the convicted sex offender was the subject of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that lasted at least five years.

Blanche said in a social media post: “A sitting US senator completely made up a story about clicks. Nobody is blocking anything. He added that the memo is available to members of Congress “unexpurgated in our reading room” but that Wyden never came to him.

The senator responded to Blanche in a series of social media posts, accusing her and Attorney General Pam Bondi of hide files in a black box, adding: “The DOJ is monitoring the members of Congress who go to see them.”

Wyden wrote in his letter to Blanche on Wednesday that Senate Finance Committee investigators had been informed that the DEA was willing to comply with his request for an unredacted copy of the memo — until Blanche intervened in the past three weeks.

“I have noticed that you are preventing the Drug Enforcement Administration from producing an unredacted copy of a report I requested regarding drug trafficking and money laundering by Jeffrey Epstein and several associates,” Wyden wrote. “Your alleged interference in this matter is very disturbing.”

Wyden added that he believed the government had “ample evidence” that Epstein was involved in drug trafficking and “likely injected his victims, including underage girls, with incapacitating drugs to facilitate the abuse.”

The redacted document shows the DEA investigation targeted Epstein and 14 others for suspicious money transfers possibly linked to illegal narcotics. Sources tell CBS News that internal case coding indicates DEA agents were targeting “club drugs” including ketamine, ecstasy and GHB. The document says the case was linked to the drug MDMA, also known as ecstasy.

“DEA reports indicate that the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers related to illicit drug and/or prostitution activity occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York,” the 2015 document states. The 69-page memo is marked “law enforcement sensitive” and conceals the names of the other 14 targets.

The document appears to come from a DEA request to a drug and organized crime enforcement fusion center in Virginia for a comprehensive work on the targets in the case, a law enforcement source told CBS News. The fusion center then compared the names to all major federal law enforcement databases and produced the information for the task force.

A law enforcement source told CBS News that for the DEA to open the case, there would have to be a drug connection, and the fusion center’s involvement indicated the investigation was “significant.”

Earlier this month, CBS News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the DEA for additional information regarding the agency’s case. This request was rejected by the agency, citing that the publication of the memo “[c]”it could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings”, among other reasons.

Police sources said the memo could be withheld because it could contain enforcement measures related to the case or because names of confidential informants could be listed.

Epstein was arrested and jailed in July 2019, after a separate investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Sources involved in the case told CBS News that prosecutors were unaware of the DEA’s prior investigation.

Her death in prison a few weeks later, he was ruled to have committed suicide.