The man tapped to fill Pam Bondi’s shoes isn’t any better at handling the Epstein files than she was.Hours after Donald Trump named him as Bondi’s temporary successor on Thursday, acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche took to Fox News, weaving a bold-faced lie about the celebrity pedophile investigation to the network’s conservative audience.“The Department of Justice has now released all the files with respect to the Epstein saga,” Blanche said. “[Former] Attorney General Bondi and I appeared in front of Congress voluntarily a couple weeks ago to answer any questions they had. We have made every single congressman—senator—available to come and see any document, redacted or unredacted, that they want.”“To the extent the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward,” Blanche added.But the notion that the DOJ has released everything it has on the Epstein files just isn’t true. The agency has released roughly 3.5 million pages of evidence related to Epstein’s crimes, but according to a memo from Blanche’s former office in January, the DOJ’s “collection efforts resulted in more than 6 million pages being identified.” That would suggest the agency has only released about half of the evidence that DOJ employees had already determined to be related to the case.Failing to provide all of the documentation related to the Epstein files is in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed by Trump into law in November.Lawmakers were quick to call out the discrepancy in Blanche’s numbers, indicating that the Epstein files are likely to be just as big of an issue for the new DOJ chief as his predecessor.“This is a lie. About 50 percent of the files have been released and per our subpoena it’s illegal to withhold them,” wrote California Representative Robert Garcia on X, responding to a clip of the interview. “Blanche may think it’s over, but we are just getting started.”At least one Republican similarly put Blanche to task, reminding the new DOJ head of the looming release deadline.“Congratulations AG Blanche,” posted Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie. “Now you have 30 days to release the rest of the files before becoming criminally liable for failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”