Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday that the Justice Department, under his leadership, would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the only convicted co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein now serving 20 years in prison for her part in the sex trafficking scheme.
“I can commit to that, of course,” he said in response to a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.
The decision to pardon Maxwell, however, is ultimately up to President Donald Trump, who has not ruled out such an action. Her lawyer has said that she intends to seek clemency to avoid having to serve out the entirety of her sentence and that he believes a pardon is likely.
Blanche, serving in his capacity as the deputy attorney general, interviewed Maxwell in a Florida U.S. attorney’s office last summer over the course of a two day meeting. There, Maxwell said that she never saw Trump engage in impropriety and that she “admire[d] his extraordinary achievement.”
Shortly afterward, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison camp, a move criticized by many as a kind of reward from the administration for Maxwell. Blanche has defended the decision, citing worries about her safety.
Under questioning by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Blanche also apologized for his agency’s failure to redact the names, faces and sometimes even nude images of alleged victims as part of the DOJ release of the Epstein files.
“Any time we release a victim’s name that shouldn’t be released, we have failed as a Department of Justice,” Blanche said, adding to Murray: “I hear your anger.”
He argued that the law passed by Congress last year to compel the release of the Epstein files created significant logistical challenges by requiring disclosure of nearly all Epstein-related records within 30 days.
“It required us to review over six million pieces of paper in a very short period of time, and so, 0.001 percent, we made mistakes, and we owned up to them,” Blanche said.
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