Todd Blanche Also Botched the Epstein Files—Then Secured Ghislaine Maxwell VIP Prison Treatment

Another MAGA flunky has flown too close to the fascist sun, so here we are—yet again—finding ourselves with absolutely zero time to breathe a sigh of relief before we have to dread whoever’s next. 

ICYMI, on Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi was officially sacked from her post, in what the Daily Mail said was a dramatic scene where she “begged” Trump to reconsider after he said she committed an “unforgivable offense.” (Unclear what said offense is, but we have our guesses.) It’s a big full-circle moment for the AG, who in February dismissed a call to apologize to Epstein’s survivors as “theatrics.” How’s that for theater?!!

Trump’s replacement is none other than Todd Blanche, Bondi’s Deputy AG, and one of the president’s former personal lawyers, who represented him in his hush-money trial involving porn star Stormy Daniels, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, and the case accusing Trump of seeking to overturn the 2020 election. Blanche will be the first acting AG in modern history to have been the president’s personal criminal defense lawyer. 

He’s also the big number-two (at the Justice Department), and, well… Ghislaine Maxwell’s biggest bitch. 

One of the shadiest things to come of Blanche’s tenure as deputy AG took place in July, when he interviewed Maxwell—a convicted pedophile and Epstein’s partner in crime—over two days in a federal prosecutor’s office in Florida. By then, Maxwell had served two years of her 20-year prison sentence in a federal prison in Tallahassee. After this nine-hour interview, she was granted limited immunity and moved to a new minimum-security unit alongside Elizabeth Holmes and Jen Shah.

In this cushy new accommodation nicknamed the “honor dorm” and meant to house well-behaved inmates, Maxwell reportedly enjoys privileges like customized meals, private meetings with visitors who can bring personal computers, and a literal prison puppy. (Keeping our fingers crossed Kristi Noem doesn’t get sent to that jail, too…) In November, one of her guards complained that he was “sick of having to be [her] bitch,” and a whistleblower called her “more…a guest at a Trump hotel than a federal prisoner and child sex offender.” And the person who got her there is our nation’s new top chief law enforcement officer. 

During Maxwell’s conversation with Blanche—which initially took place behind closed doors—he said her attorney reached out to him and acknowledged she “wanted to speak with somebody from the government…not only [about her] case, but about everything that’s been in the media.” She added, “I would be very keen to talk to anyone, because no one from the government at any time, since the inception of the case, dating back to the early 2000s, has ever spoken to me.” Weird. A bunch of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims have also said they’ve been unable to find anyone at the DOJ willing to talk to them.

Blanche also at one point asked Maxwell about the infamous photo of herself, Trump, Epstein, and Melania, to which she replied, “They were social settings… I think they were friendly, like people are in social settings.” Emphasizing that she didn’t think Epstein and Trump were “close friends,” she also insisted she never saw the latter in a “massage” or “inappropriate” setting. 

It’s not clear yet whether Blanche will be Bondi’s permanent replacement, but Trump named him interim AG for the time being—giving him the full authority and mandate to continue his predecessor’s crooked dealings. Really feels like anyone and their mother can just waltz right into the administration’s justice system…

---