Today, Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, installing Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting head of the Department of Justice. Not only has the new acting attorney general been doing Trump’s dirty work burying the Epstein files and protecting Epstein associate and convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, but he was also one of Trump’s top former personal defense attorneys – a remarkable elevation as the DOJ is entrenched in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. Blanche is a stone-cold Trump crony who will cede total control over the DOJ to the president, giving Trump even more leeway to prosecute his political opponents and reap personal gain for him and his billionaire friends. Read more about acting AG Todd Blanche’s background:
Trump’s New Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, Defended Trump In Court For His Hush Money Trial, Federal Election Interference Case, And Classified Documents Case. Before joining Trump’s Department of Justice in his second term, Todd Blanche served as lead counsel for Trump in multiple key, high-profile cases against Donald Trump in state and federal courts. He served as lead counsel for Trump in the New York state case against Trump for falsifying business records, which led to Trump’s still-standing conviction in May 2024. Blanche also defended Trump against charges brought by former Special Counsel Jack Smith in Washington, D.C., related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as Smith’s charges against Trump related to mishandling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
- Even before representing Trump, Blanche represented Trump’s former campaign chairman in court. In 2019, Todd Blanche represented Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in court, defending Manafort in a New York-based mortgage fraud case that he successfully got dismissed.
After Joining Trump’s DOJ, Blanche Held Meetings With Ghislaine Maxwell. On July 22, 2025, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche – one of Trump’s former personal defense attorneys – said he was in talks with Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney and that he planned to meet with her at former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s direction. Trump said he thought the plan “sounds appropriate.”
Blanche Immediately Moved Maxwell To A Cushy “Club Fed” Facility After The Meetings. Just days after Maxwell held a marathon two-day meeting with Blanche, she was moved to a minimum security “Club Fed” in Texas – a move which is quite rare for convicted sex offenders like Maxwell and heavily suggested she was receiving special treatment from Trump’s DOJ.
Blanche Released Transcripts Claiming Maxwell Never Saw Trump “In Any Inappropriate Setting.” In her quest for a pardon, Maxwell told Todd Blanche that she never saw Trump “in any inappropriate setting,” and in February 2026, she refused to testify before the House Oversight Committee and said she would only answer questions if Trump granted her clemency. Even as she seeks clemency from Trump, Maxwell is still actively in court trying to block the release of documents from Virginia Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Blanche Claimed The Review Of The Epstein Files Was Effectively “Over” After Dumping 3 Million Pages Of Files Over A Month After The Legal Deadline. On January 30, the DOJ released roughly 3.5 million pages of Epstein records – more than a month past the legal deadline. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the review of more than six million files was effectively “over” and appeared to confirm that millions of files would not be released. Hours after the final release of documents, a group of 18 survivors of Epstein’s abuse said in a joint statement that the disclosure did not do enough to hold his enablers accountable. Politico described Trump’s weaponization of the pending document dump as “WikiLeaks 2.0,” with bad‑faith actors cherry‑picking and misrepresenting documents. The Associated Press found at least 16 files had disappeared from the DOJ’s public website within hours after the release.
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