Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / No Pardon for Maxwell? Todd Blanche Faces Senate Questions Over Epstein Justice (5/20/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
- 0:03Epstein Chronicles. Todd Blanche made an appearance both for the
- 0:09Senate yesterday and of course he had some questions thrown
- 0:12at him that had to do with Jeffrey Epstein, and
- 0:16according to Todd Baby Billy Blanche, he won't be recommending
- 0:20that Gallainne Maxwell gets a pardon. The only problem with
- 0:24that is, well, besides that he's a liar, is that
- 0:27his boss is the one who makes that decision. So
- 0:31it has nothing to do with Todd Blanche. If Donald
- 0:34Trump wants to pardon Gallan Maxwell, that's what he's gonna do.
- 0:38So forgive me if I don't take any comfort in
- 0:41Todd Blanche telling us that's not gonna happen. Today's article
- 0:46was published by the Guardian and the headline Todd Blanche
- 0:51says he would not recommend a pardon for Gallaine Maxwell.
- 0:54This article was authored by Anna Betts. Todd Blanche, the
- 0:58acting US Attorney General, pulled lawmakers on Tuesday that he
- 1:02would not recommend a pardon for Glenn Maxwell, the longtime
- 1:05associate of Jeffrey Epstein who's serving a twenty year prison
- 1:08sentence for sex trafficking crimes. Well, isn't that noble of you?
- 1:13What a great guy, Todd, blanchees not going to recommend
- 1:16a pardon for a child molester. Hey, Todd, why'd you
- 1:20move her? Why don't we start there? Glenn Maxwell should
- 1:23have never been moved from Tallahassee to Texas. Still no answers.
- 1:31Blanche comments came during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, where
- 1:34he was testifying before the Appropriation Subcommittee over budget requests
- 1:39for the Justice Department. During one exchange, Chris Van Holland,
- 1:42a Democrat from Maryland, asked Blanche whether the Justice Department,
- 1:46and he is the acting Attorney General, could commit to
- 1:50not recommending a pardon for Maxwell. Yes, I can commit
- 1:53to that, of course. Blanche, who's a former personal lawyer
- 1:56for Trump, responded, what was the matter. He's just saying
- 2:02whatever he thinks people want to hear. If Donald Trump
- 2:07wants to pardon Glan Maxwell, that's what's gonna happen. Now. Look,
- 2:10I'm not gonna tell you that that's definitely for sure
- 2:13gonna go down. I don't know. And if you would
- 2:15have asked me a year ago, I would have said
- 2:17no way. But now I'll bets are off, and that's
- 2:21because the Epstein situation has made Trump and the Trump
- 2:24administration even more unpredictable than ever. The statement comes as
- 2:32Maxwell exhausted a series of appeals of her conviction, with
- 2:36the US Supreme Court in October declining to hear her petition.
- 2:40Why would they want to hear it? We all saw
- 2:42the trial, we all saw the evidence. Did Glenn Maxwell
- 2:46really think she was gonna be able to bullshit her
- 2:48way out of the conviction? Not gonna happen, not with
- 2:53a court now, maybe with Donald Trump and his buddies,
- 2:57but now with the court, zero chance. Earlier this year,
- 3:03Maxwell appeared before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, but
- 3:07invoked her Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer the
- 3:10panel's questions. Her attorney told lawmakers that she would only
- 3:14speak if granted clemency. Granted clemency, what about just burying
- 3:20her under the jail, you know, until her sentence is over.
- 3:25There got to be a basement, right, put her there.
- 3:28No chick fil a, no plan with puppies, just darkness.
- 3:32I'm done with these people, especially people that have already
- 3:35been convicted. And in April, reports emerged that members of
- 3:38the committee were divided over whether Trump should consider pardoning
- 3:42Maxwell in exchange for her cooperation in the Panels Epstein investigation. Well,
- 3:48he doesn't have to worry about Thomas Massey anymore or
- 3:51Marjorie Taylor Green. So it looks like the GOP they'll
- 3:55be able to run roughshod. But that also means the
- 3:59GEO he owns this Epstein issue now, and I promise
- 4:03you this is going to have lasting effects that outlast
- 4:07Donald Trump. So all these people out here that are
- 4:10running their fat fucking yaps carrying water for the administration,
- 4:14just remember this administration isn't forever, but your shame when
- 4:18it comes to Epstein. That most certainly is. Last year,
- 4:22the Trump administration faced growing pressure to release more documents
- 4:26related to the Epstein investigation. It dispatched Blanche, who was
- 4:30Deputy Attorney General at the time, to interview Maxwell about
- 4:34the Epstein case. The interview, conducted over two days in July,
- 4:38was followed by the Justice Department releasing the transcripts and
- 4:42audio recordings shortly after that meeting. In August, Maxwell was
- 4:47transferred from low security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a
- 4:50minimum security camp in Texas, where most prisoners are serving
- 4:55time for non violent offenses and white collar crime. At
- 4:59the time, experts described the move as unprecedented. Do you
- 5:05think they would have given l Choppo that kind of deal?
- 5:08What about El Mio? Probably not huh. But Glenn Maxwell,
- 5:14let's get her moved asap. Come on, her crimes weren't
- 5:18that bad. They're only crimes against children. No big deal.
- 5:23Since then, reports of service that Maxwell is much happier
- 5:27at the Texas facility than she was at her previous prison,
- 5:30and there have been allegations that she's receiving favorable treatment.
- 5:35Of course, Todd Blanche denied that too. Favorable treatment. What
- 5:39do you mean, Glenn Maxwell, She's in jail, let's just
- 5:44move on. During Tuesday's hearing, Blanche denied that Trump personally
- 5:49sent them to interview Maxwell and claimed he didn't know
- 5:53whether she was receiving better treatment at her new facility.
- 5:57Oh bullshit. Who do you think controls the b that's right,
- 6:01the DOJ. Stop the nonsense. The possibility of clemency for Maxwell,
- 6:09however unlikely, has long outraged survivors and their advocates, and
- 6:13I think that most Americans share that same exact sentiment.
- 6:18Everybody knows that what's going on is absolutely fucked. The
- 6:22problem is there's about five other situations happening at the
- 6:25same time that are equally as fucked. Most importantly, what's
- 6:30going on in Iran, which is an absolute disaster and
- 6:33look as important as the Epstein story is. When average
- 6:37people can't put gas in their car, can't afford to
- 6:39go to work, can't afford to keep the lights on,
- 6:41see inflation blasting up over four seeing mortgages go to
- 6:45six point seven eight percent, they know there's a problem
- 6:49and there's a lot of other things for the average
- 6:52person to worry about, and that's why the Trump administration
- 6:55has flooded the zone, confuse people, office gate and hopefully
- 7:00bury what's going on with Epstein, and unfortunately their strategy
- 7:04has proven to be pretty effective. Earlier this month, Spencer Covin,
- 7:10chief legal officer and litigation director at Cold Law, which
- 7:14has represented numerous Epstein survivors, told The Guardian that any
- 7:17talk of clemency for Maxwell in exchange for testimony turns
- 7:21justice on its head. It risks rewarding the very person
- 7:25who helped enable the abuse, and not only that took
- 7:28part in it. We have one person in prison because
- 7:31of this, and these disgusting, disgusting people are talking about
- 7:35granting her clemency. I wonder how many of those people
- 7:38have used the hush fund to defend their own allegations.
- 7:42A representative for Maxwell did not immediately respond to a
- 7:45request for comment about Blanche's statement. During the hearing on Tuesday,
- 7:49Van Holland also told Blanche that he'd spoken with several
- 7:53survivors of Epstein's abuse, who told them that they were
- 7:56extremely frustrated that Blanche keeps calling for people to come
- 7:59forward with more evidence, but you have not met with
- 8:02them to hear their stories. If I connect you with
- 8:06these survivors, will you meet with them? Van Holland asked Blanche.
- 8:10Why would he have to be connected. Shouldn't Todd Blanche,
- 8:14the most powerful lawman in the world, be doing this already.
- 8:19Blanche responded, absolutely, and what you just said is false.
- 8:22I have met with them. I've met with many many
- 8:25of the lawyers for the survivors of victims, as did
- 8:28Attorney General Bondie. So whoever told you that unfortunately gave
- 8:32you bad information? Yeah, I don't believe that. Sorry, I
- 8:35don't believe Todd Blanche has been proactive. His whole job
- 8:38has been to mitigate this. In response, a group of
- 8:45seventeen Epstein's survivors released a statement on Tuesday saying Blanche
- 8:49has not met with any of us as survivors. We
- 8:52previously sought a meeting with former Attorney General Bondie and
- 8:55Department of Justice officials, but no meeting occurred. They said,
- 9:00we should not have to be this persistent to engage
- 9:03with the DOJ, the department responsible for handling the Epstein files,
- 9:07protecting their privacy and answering for years of secrecy and failure. Unfortunately,
- 9:14that's just the case. The dj has no desire to
- 9:17get to the bottom of what happened. The whole entire
- 9:20goal is to keep it hidden, and they're willing to
- 9:25go to great lengths to do that. But I don't
- 9:27know if this strategy they're using is going to work,
- 9:30especially down in places where there's a split voter base.
- 9:34Now Kentucky. They might be onto something because people in Kentucky,
- 9:38well let's just say it, they're going to vote for
- 9:40whoever the Republican candidate is anyway. But in some of
- 9:44these other places where the incumbent got voted out. That
- 9:48might give the Democrats an inroad to flip in that seat.
- 9:52So it's going to be very interesting to watch all
- 9:54of that unfold. In the statement, they added that given
- 9:58Blanche comments again asking DOJ to meet directly with survivors
- 10:02and their counsel, not to ask survivors to start over,
- 10:06but to hear their concerns, explain how these failures occurred,
- 10:09and provide clear answers about the release, redaction and withholding
- 10:13of Epstein related records going forward. Well, as much as
- 10:16I'd like to believe Todd Blanche in his nonsense, I don't,
- 10:20and I don't believe that Todd Blanche speaks for President
- 10:23Trump when it comes to a pardon for Glenn Maxwell.
- 10:27So his guarantees that he's not going to recommend that
- 10:30Donald Trump do that they mean less than nothing, and
- 10:33considering his actions go against everything he says, I think
- 10:36it's going to be a hard sell to the American
- 10:38people that Todd Blanche is the arbiter of truth and
- 10:42that he's looking for justice for the Epstein survivors. And
- 10:45as you can tell from the response by the Epstein survivors,
- 10:49they're not buying it either. All the information that goes
- 10:52with this episode can be found in the description box.