Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are honing in on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's role in transferring convicted *** offender and Jeffrey Epstein conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower-security prison in 2025 ahead of confirmation hearings for the controversial attorney general nominee, scheduled for July.
In anew letterto Blanche and the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent on Wednesday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asks why the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons continue to stonewall his 10-month old request for information about who approved Maxwell's transfer. Whitehouse's letter also requests information abouta change in BOP policy made on May 6that would allow Blanche to keep oversight of Maxwell's conditions, by enabling the attorney general to personally "designate or redesignate the place of a prisoner's imprisonment." Maxwell had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for numerous felony offenses related to her involvement with Epstein, including child *** trafficking, in 2022.
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This letter offers a preview of the kinds of questions that Blanche will face at his confirmation hearing.
"Blanche should be prepared to explain his role in the curious transfer of Epstein-enabler Ghislaine Maxwell to a cushy prison camp, and in the bungled release of victims' private information and buried allegations against President Trump," Whitehouse said in a statement to HuffPost. "It would be a disaster for the rule of law if the Judiciary Committee promotes Blanche to Attorney General."
Blanche, who worked as President Donald Trump's personal lawyer in various criminal and civil cases against the president and has a record of acting on Trump's most extreme and vengeful wishes, is already a deeply controversial nominee.
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But it is his apparent connection to the effort to protect Trump from the fallout of the Epstein files, including Maxwell's transfer, that will likely be the biggest hindrance to his confirmation.
Maxwell's transfer last year to a minimum security prison was highly unusual, as *** offenders are not normally provided such treatment. The transfer followed an equally unusual one-on-one interview between her and Blanche, in which she claimed that Trump never did anything inappropriate during his years-long friendship with Epstein.
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Blanche proposed that he personally interview Maxwell at a July 2025 high-level White House crisis meeting aimed at countering blowback over the administration's failure to release files related to Epstein,according to the New York Times. The interview, in which Maxwell would exonerate Trump, was meant to serve as PR pushback against claims that the president, whom Epstein called his "closest friend" for 10 years, had been involved in any criminal activity. Maxwell's transfer occurred weeks later.
The White House claimed at the time that Maxwell received no "preferential treatment," and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi denied any knowledge of her transfer. Neither the Justice Department nor the Bureau of Prisons had issued a statement or responded to Whitehouse's inquiries on the process that led to Maxwell's transfer until BOP put out astatementon X on June 17.
The agency claimed that Maxwell's "designation and transfer were made independently by BOP and were based on … factors that required additional security measures," in the post, and stated that "[n]o preference, special treatment, or political influence played any role in these decisions."
For Whitehouse, this raises additional questions about why the agency cannot answer his questions and why it changed its procedures to allow Blanche to personally order the transfer of prisoners in May.
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