Here’s a simple question to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi at her congressional hearing Wednesday: Why was Todd Blanche the one to conduct a proffer of Ghislaine Maxwell?
Blanche, the highest-ranking Justice Department official under Bondi and a former Donald Trump defense lawyer, led the interviews of the convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate over the summer. The deputy attorney general said that he reached out to Maxwell at Bondi’s direction.
But on top of Blanche’s enduring allegiance to Trump and the clear conflict it creates, he was an odd choice to question Maxwell about any actionable Epstein-related information she might have — that is, if the point was to properly collect and analyze such information.
The truth does matter. That’s why Blanche was the wrong one to purportedly seek it in this situation.
Though it might seem like sending in a high-ranking official puts more legal muscle behind the endeavor, the opposite is true when it comes to conducting proffer sessions. That’s because those interviews are typically led by the prosecutors who have actually worked on the cases and investigations at issue, as they’d know what to ask and how to assess the value of the defendant’s answers.
Therefore, between Blanche’s loyalty to Trump and the fact that he wasn’t well-positioned to conduct the inquiry, he was doomed to fail in any competent and respectable investigation. While he wasn’t naive about the situation, it still falls under Bondi’s purview as attorney general, and it’s therefore a proper avenue of congressional oversight examination.
Unsurprisingly, the published transcripts and audio of Blanche’s conversations with Maxwell showed that at least one of his priorities — perhaps his sole priority — was to try to exonerate Trump. Indeed, there seemed to be an unspoken understanding of that purpose between Blanche and Maxwell.
“I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects,” the convicted child sex trafficker told him. She was subsequently moved to a minimum-security facility. The Supreme Court declined to review her appeal, and she faces a 2037 release date.
Maxwell predictably invoked the Fifth Amendment before Congress on Monday. Her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, who had a good relationship with Blanche even before Trump won the 2024 election, said his client would answer questions if the president grants her clemency. “Only she can provide the complete account,” Markus said, adding that “some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters.”
The truth does matter. That’s why Blanche was the wrong one to purportedly seek it in this situation.
And that’s what makes the question of why Bondi sent him to do so a challenging one for her to answer honestly. She either tasked Blanche with a political mission to please their boss at the expense of doing the job of a prosecutor, or she didn’t understand the job of a prosecutor. Either answer would reflect that she’s in the wrong job herself.
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