# BREAKING NEWS: Sullivan Gives Blanche 10 Days — and a Contempt Citation

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/breaking-news-sullivan-gives-blanche-10-days-and-a-contempt-citation
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/breaking-news-sullivan-gives-blanche-10-days-and-a-contempt-citation.md
Podcast: [FiveStack with Dean Blundell & Zev Shalev](https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639)
Published: 2026-08-13T20:22:59+00:00
Episode link: https://www.narativ.org/p/breaking-news-sullivan-gives-blanche
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/211078517/a556605827ad7392b36cb4a1f017838e.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/episodes/breaking-news-sullivan-gives-blanche-10-days-and-a-contempt-citation
Duration seconds: 3373

## Resource

Judge Emmett Sullivan gave Attorney General Todd Blanche ten days to explain, in a sworn declaration, why the Justice Department still hasn’t produced the Epstein documents the court ordered released — then closed the hearing with a story about the one prosecutor he ever held in contempt, case citation included, so Blanche’s lawyers could look up how that ended. Thursday’s Fivestack convened minutes after the hearing ended. Zev, Dean Blundell, attorney Anne P. Mitchell and Ellie Leonard of The Panicked Writer had all listened in live — and Zev read the hearing’s defining exchange straight from the transcript. It deserves to run in full: THE COURT: Give me a date. I’m willing to work with you. Give me a date when this can be accomplished. DOJ: I don’t have a date … it’s a little bit out of my control. THE COURT: But you knew this was going to be discussed today, though. DOJ: I’m not able to give you a date because, quite honestly, that date is out of my control. THE COURT: You can’t give the court a time frame — 30 days, 60 days, whatever? DOJ: I’m not able to, Your Honor. THE COURT: Is there someone at the Department of Justice who can do that? … Pass the microphone to that person. DOJ: It is forthcoming. THE COURT: This much is forthcoming. Let’s be realistic … the public demands the time frame, not just me. The department that indexed millions of pages in weeks cannot name a month. The date fight was about the Epstein Files Transparency Act’s plainest requirement: every redaction gets a written justification, published in the Federal Register. Seven months after Sullivan’s injunction, the department has published none. The day’s other fight was 37 pages of handwritten FBI notes — the agents’ original interview notes underlying the typed 302 reports in the Jane Doe 4…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/episodes/breaking-news-sullivan-gives-blanche-10-days-and-a-contempt-citation/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/breaking-news-sullivan-gives-blanche-10-days-and-a-contempt-citation.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.