Topic analysis

Todd Blanche says he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell

Acting US attorney general made comments about the Epstein associate at a Senate hearing over budget requests US politics live – latest updates Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell , the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. Blanche’s comments came during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, where he was testifying before the appropriations subcommittee over budget requests for the justice department. During one exchange, Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, asked Blanche whether the justice department, and he as the acting attorney general, could commit to not recommending a pardon for Maxwell. “Yes, I can commit to that, of course,” Blanche, who is a former personal lawyer for Trump, responded . The statement comes as Maxwell exhausted a series of appeals of her conviction, with the US supreme court in October declining to hear her petition. Earlier this year, Maxwell appeared before the House oversight and reform committee but invoked her fifth amendment right and refused to answer the panel’s questions. Her attorney told lawmakers that she would only speak if granted clemency. And in April, reports emerged that members of the committee were divided over whether Trump should consider pardoning Maxwell in exchange for her cooperation in the panel’s Epstein investigation. Last year, as the Trump administration faced growing pressure to release more documents related to the Epstein investigation, it dispatched Blanche, who was deputy attorney general at the time, to interview Maxwell about the Epstein case. The interview, conducted over two days in July, was followed by the justice department releasing the transcripts and audio recordings . Shortly after that meeting, in August, Maxwell was transferred from a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security camp in Texas, where most prisoners are serving time for non-violent offenses and white-collar crimes . At the time, experts described the move as “ unprecedented ”. Since then, reports have surfaced that Maxwell is “much happier” at the Texas facility than she was at her previous prison, and there have been allegations that she is receiving favorable treatment. During Tuesday’s hearing, Blanche denied that Trump personally sent him to interview Maxwell and claimed he didn’t know whether she was receiving better treatment at her new facility. The possibility of clemency for Maxwell , however unlikely, has long outraged survivors and their advocates. Earlier this month, Spencer Kuvin, chief legal officer and litigation director of Goldlaw, which has represented numerous Epstein survivors, told the Guardian that “any talk of clemency for Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for testimony turns justice on its head – it risks rewarding the very person who helped enable the abuse”. A representative for Maxwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Blanche’s statements. During the hearing on Tuesday, Van Hollen also told Blanche that he had spoken with several survivors of Epstein’s abuse, who told him that they were “extremely frustrated” that Blanche “keeps calling for people to come forward with more evidence, but you have not met with them to hear their stories”. “If I connect you with these survivors, will you meet with them?” Van Hollen asked Blanche. Blanche responded: “Absolutely, and what you just said is false, I have met with them, I’ve met with the many, many of the lawyers for the survivors of victims as did Attorney General Bondi, so whoever told you that unfortunately gave you bad information.” In response, a group of 17 Epstein survivors released a statement on Tuesday, saying that Blanche “has not met with any of us”. “As survivors, we previously sought a meeting with former Attorney General Bondi and Department of Justice officials, but no meeting occurred,” they said. “We should not have to be this persistent to engage with DOJ – the department responsible for handling the Epstein files, protecting their privacy, and answering for years of secrecy and failure.” In the statement, they added that “given Blanche’s comments, we are again asking DoJ to meet directly with survivors and their counsel – not to ask survivors to start over, but to hear their concerns, explain how these failures occurred, and provide clear answers about the release, redaction, and withholding of Epstein-related records going forward”.