Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche pledged before a Senate committee Tuesday that the Justice Department will not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker who worked alongside Jeffrey Epstein.
Blanche made the commitment under questioning at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, his first congressional appearance since replacing former Attorney General Pam Bondi. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, pressed Blanche to rule out any DOJ advocacy for a Maxwell pardon or sentence commutation.
“Yes I can commit to that, of course,” Blanche told Van Hollen.
Blanche also said the department intends to meet with victims of Epstein and Maxwell. “We absolutely want to hear from them and their lawyers,” he said.
The commitment followed escalating pressure from Senate Democrats. Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sent a letter to Blanche on Monday demanding he publicly pledge that the DOJ would not advocate for Maxwell’s release in exchange for her cooperation with investigators.
Their letter came after ABC News reported that Blanche had met privately with Maxwell for nine hours over two days last week, and that Maxwell had been granted limited immunity during those sessions. The senators called the meeting’s “purpose and timing” perplexing.
“It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for the Deputy Attorney General to conduct such an interview, rather than line prosecutors who are familiar with the details of the case,” Durbin and Whitehouse wrote.
Maxwell was convicted in December 2021 of sex trafficking minors through her work with Epstein and is currently serving a 20-year federal sentence. She has also asked the Supreme Court to overturn her conviction, a petition the DOJ is expected to respond to in the coming months.
President Trump addressed the pardon question himself on Monday. “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it,” he told reporters.
Bondi, who was dismissed from the attorney general post and replaced by Blanche, had faced bipartisan criticism for releasing Epstein-related DOJ files in a way that exposed the identifying information of victims. Democratic senators have continued to demand full public release of all Epstein files. “DOJ should simply release the Epstein files, as Attorney General Bondi promised to do,” Durbin and Whitehouse wrote.
Blanche did not commit to keeping all information about the department’s activities public, stating that some details would remain shielded under privacy laws.
The Maxwell questions came during a hearing otherwise focused on the DOJ’s .8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, through which the Trump administration has committed to compensate claimed victims of legal prosecution, including Jan. 6 defendants. Blanche defended the fund, claiming Trump “did not direct me to do anything” in establishing it.
