'First of its kind' Epstein lawsuit against Todd Blanche has legal world abuzz

A journalist's lawsuit against the acting head of the Department of Justice to release the unredacted Epstein files is the "first of its kind" and shows promise, according to a legal expert.

Former MSNBC host Katie Phang's lawsuit against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche "broke the glass ceiling," attorney and legal commentator Michael Popok hailed on an episode of his Legal AF podcast.

Phang said that one of the key parts of her lawsuit is a preliminary injunction that would "give me access to illegally redacted names, email addresses, the names of the co-defendants," as well as "the FBI interview notes for the Donald Trump allegger," who claimed she was "13 years old when she was sexually battered and physically abused by Donald Trump" — an allegation Trump has denied and the DOJ has called "unfounded and false."

Her lawsuit is also asking for a judge to force Blanche to provide a public "roadmap" for what he can and cannot redact, Phang explained.

"That was supposed to have been done and recorded with the Federal Register," she said about the redaction roadmap. "But Blanche wiped his a-- with it and said he's not going to do it."

Phang says that she's basically looking for "somebody who's going to call the balls and strikes" on what can and can't be redacted.

"We're literally just asking the court to force the federal government to do what the law requires it to do," Phang says.

She added that as a journalist, she refuses to be "a mere mouthpiece" for the information the DOJ wants to put out.

"As soon as I get anything from the court, I just blast it out to everybody in the world," Phang said. "That's the point of me doing this as a journalist."

For Popok, her doing it as a journalist is why the lawsuit stands out, as he agreed, "Their spoon-feeding of the media has made us complicit in their scandal."