Planning for a Cover-Up in a House with Small Children and Other Stories of How Todd Blanche Is Helping a Sex Trafficker
CNN has a story about how Trump’s impeachment defense attorney, his criminal defense attorney, the flunkie who helped frame Hillary Clinton, and his Chief of Staff will go to JD Vance’s home — where he is raising three children under the age of 10 — to discuss how to make Donald Trump’s sex trafficking problem go away.
They apparently believe that Todd Blanche can hold his own in an interview with Joe Rogan, who has long smelled the rat in this cover-up.
The administration’s handling of the Epstein case, as well as the need to craft a unified response, is expected to be a main focus of the dinner, three sources familiar with the meeting told CNN. The meeting will include White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Blanche.
With the exception of Vance, the White House considers those officials the leaders of the administration’s ongoing strategy regarding the Epstein files, two of the sources said.
The meeting comes as Trump’s administration is considering releasing the contents of Blanche’s interview last month with Maxwell. Two officials told CNN that the materials could be made public as early as this week.
There have also been internal discussions about Blanche holding a press conference or doing a high-profile interview, possibly with popular podcaster Joe Rogan, according to three people familiar with the discussions, though those conversations are preliminary. Rogan, who endorsed Trump on the eve of last fall’s election, has been highly critical of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case and previously called their refusal release more information about Epstein a “line in the sand.”
To be fair to Blanche, though, he has managed to serve his client, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, well so far.
Yesterday, Maxwell’s attorney, David Markus, submitted his — well-justified — opposition to releasing the grand jury materials for Ghislaine Maxwell’s case, the ones that would feature a broad swath of victims. He as much as conceded that this might have provided a way to review the grand jury files (another benefit Blanche tried to offer), but now that Judge Paul Engelmeyer denied that request, he’s opposed to the unsealing request.
Although the government did not oppose allowing the defense to review the grand jury material to assess whether to object to its release, the Court denied that request. As a result, Ghislaine Maxwell has not seen the material and cannot take an informed position. Given that she is actively litigating her case and does not know what is in the grand jury record, she has no choice but to respectfully oppose the government’s motion to unseal it.
Maxwell’s opposition is likely enough, by itself, to rule against release of the Maxwell transcripts, which would include far more detail than Epstein’s would.
Little noticed is the line in the DOJ filing describing DOJ telling third parties — not victims — if they appear in the grand jury transcripts.
In addition, the Government is in the process of providing notice to any other individuals identified in the transcripts.
Meanwhile, DOJ confessed yesterday that they have still not notified all the victims identified in the transcripts, and only just started to notify the victims covered under the relevant victim notification law.
Seventh, regarding the Government’s approach to victim notification of the instant proceedings, as noted in its July 29 submission, the Government has provided notice of the unsealing motions to all but one of the victims who are referenced in the grand jury transcripts at issue in the motions. The Government still has been unable to contact that remaining victim. With respect to victims who are not identified in the grand jury transcripts but who have previously received victim notifications in the Maxwell and Epstein matters, the Government will over the coming days alert those victims to the fact of the unsealing motions.
That letter was posted the same day as this letter from Brad Edwards, who likely represents the largest number of known victims. He accuses the government of violating the Crime Victims’ Rights Act generally, as well as losing track of some victims who are likely implicated in the Epstein and Maxwell grand juries but only came to be represented by Edwards after their testimony. He describes that “yesterday” (that is, Monday), he contacted the government about the other victims and they responded, which suggests this newfound focus on other victims is a response to Edwards’ efforts.
Given our history fighting for the enforcement of the CVRA on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein’s many victims, we were quite surprised to learn that the government sought the unsealing of grand jury materials before this Court without first conferring with the victims or their counsel, a step required by the CVRA and reinforced by Doe v. United States, 08-80736 (S.D. Fla.). That case, litigated pro bono by undersigned counsel for more than a decade, arose precisely because the government previously violated the rights of many of these very same victims. It is especially troubling that, despite the outcome of that litigation, the government has once again proceeded in a manner that disregards the victims’ rights—suggesting that the hard-learned lessons of the past have not taken hold. This omission reinforces the perception that the victims are, at best, an afterthought to the current administration.
Of significant concern, the same government that failed to provide notice to the victims before moving this Court to unseal the grand jury materials is now the government representing to this Court that it has provided appropriate notice to the victims or their counsel and has conducted a proper review and redaction of the materials it seeks to release. Several clients have contacted us expressing deep anxiety over whether the redactions were in fact adequate. Consequently, we requested yesterday that the government identify which of our clients were referenced to the grand jury. The government responded promptly and provided clarification. However, we have strong reason to believe that additional individuals—whom we also represent—were likely referenced in those materials but were not identified to us by the government.
It remains unclear whether notice was instead provided to prior counsel, whether their omission was a government oversight, whether the government does not consider them to be victims, or whether these individuals were, in fact, not mentioned to the grand jury. Regardless of the explanation, this ambiguity raises a serious issue that must be resolved before any materials are publicly released. [my emphasis]
You know who wouldn’t have fucked up this process? The prosecutor Pam Bondi fired on Trump’s authority just as this cover-up began, Maurene Comey.
The asymmetric treatment is pissing off the victims. Annie Farmer’s attorney describes that the intent to redact third party names “smacks of a cover up.”
Any effort to redact third party names smacks of a cover up. The Government does not elaborate on what protocol it is using to redact other “third party” names or which types of individuals it seeks to protect in this way. To the extent the Government for some reason seeks to redact the names of other Epstein and Maxwell affiliates on the basis that these individuals “neither have been charged or alleged to be involved” in their crimes, the Court should exercise its independent authority to ensure that any redactions are tailored to serve compelling interests. See generally Brown v. Maxwell, 929 F.3d 41, 50 (2d Cir. 2019) (even if materials are not considered judicial documents to which a presumption of public access applies, “a court must still articulate specific and substantial reasons for sealing such material”).
I have a feeling Judge Richard Berman (who has been posting victim letters as they come in) will not take kindly to a grand jury unsealing in which people like Donald Trump and Prince Andrew get notice, but the victims do not.
This may change as Congress gets involved. Perhaps in an attempt to stave off the Massie-Khanna bid for true transparency that will ripen over the August recess, James Comer announced a bunch of subpoenas for people not named Alex Acosta or Donald Trump.
Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) announced that he was summoning nearly a dozen former officials to appear for depositions on the Epstein investigation — a list that includes former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Former U.S. Attorneys General William Barr, Alberto Gonzales, Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Merrick Garland, as well as former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey were also tapped to give testimony in connection to the case.
Comer was required to send the subpoenas after a Democratic-led subcommittee vote in July.
The move is the latest in a broader battle over the Epstein files, which took the Trump administration by storm last month as anger boiled over from within MAGA circles about the administration’s handling of the case.
The committee’s subpoena of Bill Clinton in particular seems more symbolic than substantive. No former president has ever testified to Congress under the compulsion of a subpoena — and lawmakers have tried only twice before: once in 1953, when the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed Harry Truman, and once in 2022, when the Jan. 6 select committee subpoenaed Donald Trump.
While this is the rare Epstein development that Fox has covered, there’s so much about this request that reeks of a cover-up it may well backfire.
But as Lisa Rubin describes, there’s also a subpoena to DOJ — the price of the Clinton testimony — that does make demands that would, among other things, cover the transcript of the Ghislaine Maxwell interview.
By ABC’s description, Blanche got Ghislaine to perform like a trained seal, asking her to describe what he did in her presence, but not asking her about what he did when he learned she had “stolen” one of Trump’s spa girls and forced her into sex slavery.
During her nine hours speaking with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last month, Ghislaine Maxwell said nothing during the interview that would be harmful to President Donald Trump, telling Blanche that Trump had never done anything in her presence that would have caused concern, according to sources familiar with what Maxwell said.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, is considering publicly releasing the transcripts from the interview, multiple sources familiar with the internal discussions told ABC News.
There are a lot of moving parts.
Including Ghislaine, to her new cozier digs, where the other inmates, including one whose daughter was trafficked, are already expressing disgust that Todd Blanche put a sex trafficker among their midst.
Julie Howell, 44, who is serving a one-year sentence for theft, told The Telegraph that “every inmate I’ve heard from is upset she’s here”.
“This facility is supposed to house non-violent offenders,” she added. “Human trafficking is a violent crime.”
[snip]
Inmates at FPC Bryan are worried about their own safety, given the widespread threats against Maxwell and lack of tight security on the prison grounds.
Howell said: “We have heard there are threats against her life and many of us are worried about our own safety because she’s here.”
Her comments will only fuel concern that could be targeted at the facility, preventing her testimony about Epstein from ever seeing the light of day.
Maxwell was allegedly moved under the cover of darkness because she had been “bombarded” with death threats from rapists who accused her of being a “snitch”, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Multiple outlets, including that CNN story, report that Trump’s close advisors think they’ve weathered this crisis because their mobsters — people like Charlie Kirk and Benny Johnson — have been distracted by other things.
One official told CNN that some of the conversation within the White House has focused on whether making the details from the interview public would bring the Epstein controversy back to the surface. Many officials close to Trump believe the story has largely died down.
We shall see.
As I wrote here, Trump and Blanche have the power to silence Maxwell, if the rapists calling her a snitch don’t get to her first.
But the moving parts and sheer cynicism of the cover-up may backfire.
Trump and his Administration are focusing on the potential reputational harm of those named in the grand jury materials who were not the victims, while they are ignoring the actual emotional harm of the victims.
Ignoring the victims allows them to narrow the focus to whether or not Trump participated in the abuse and trafficking. Getting Maxwell to assert that Trump wasn’t a participant helps to insulate him from political damage.
But even if Maxwell’s assumed exoneration of Trump were deemed credible, Trump and others who frequented Epstein’s salon, should be be asked if they knew or had reason to know what Epstein and Maxwell were doing and what steps did they take to protect the girls. Knowing or suspecting and doing nothing makes them culpable – perhaps not legally, but morally.
Maxwell is a despicable person who deserves to be in prison for many, many years, and at the same time she may be the key to bringing many degenerate people to justice. I don’t want to see her receive any sort of leniency or deals though. Hopefully she has a conscience but I wouldn’t count on it.
Just to keep it consistent in how the attendees are identified, I suggest changing the nomenclature to Chief of Staph in the first paragraph.
“Maxwell was allegedly moved under the cover of darkness because she had been “bombarded” with death threats from rapists who accused her of being a “snitch”, according to the Mail on Sunday.”
Whoever served as source for this canard either knows nothing about prison/criminal culture or is desperately hoping the audience for the story is just *that* ignorant and gullible. Maxwell is a pedophile sex trafficker. Women’s prisons do not boast the gangs of “rapists” necessary to “bombard” a fellow prisoner with threats of any kind, death included, but even a self-respecting female rapist would assuredly revile Maxwell for preying on children–not for “snitching.”
Maxwell never “snitched” anyway. She did not testify at her trial, and she was convicted of perjury, which tends to be the opposite of “snitching.” Among prison populations, pedophiles often require segregated incarceration due to their fellow inmates’ perception of them as the lowest of the low, in the same Dantean circle of Hell as child murderers.
It seems that someone within the Trump administration wants to gaslight (again), invoking retro-pop-culture words like “snitch” alongside fantasy gangs of “rapists” determined to Shut That Squealer’s Mouth For The Last Time. It all has such a patina of 1950s melodrama (my favorite: Women In Cages) that I’m starting to wonder if it came from Trump himself.
AFAIK, Maxwell has not been convicted of perjury. The perjury charges were indicted separately from the sex trafficing charges. “After prosecutors secured a conviction against Maxwell, they declined to move forward with a court-ordered trial on the perjury charges.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/will-ghislaine-maxwell-tell-truth-investigators-rcna216872
If/when the transcript of Blanche’s interview with Maxwell is released, I predict a Truth Social post describing it as a “perfect interview,” a la Trump’s description of his “I’d like you to do us a favor, though” phone call with Zelenskyy.
I predict the transcripts will identify only the names of Trump’s enemies and lots of innuendo from Maxwell. Todd Blanche’s questioning will not be probing but will be leading. His only purpose is political.
Dinner at JD Vance’s house to discuss how to stonewall releasing the #EpsteinFiles.
#CoverUp
MAGAts are not happy. They KNOW that Dems are pedos, because pizza parlor basement, and they want jail time for everyone but former Dem Donsld Trump.
“You know who wouldn’t have fucked up this process? The prosecutor Pam Bondi fired on Trump’s authority just as this cover-up began, Maurene Comey.” Fucking up the process was the assignment, actually. Now reading Julie K. Brown’s “Perversion of Justice”, and fucking up the process has been the hallmark of the government’s work on the Epstein case from the jump (that, and Epstein’s bottomless bank account and battery of lawyers). The victims’ peace will never come.
Well,
(8) The right to be treated with fairness and with respect for the victim’s dignity and privacy.
(9) The right to be informed in a timely manner of any plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement.
says it all.
They are ignoring the Crime Victim’s Rights Act. Pam Bondi is probably just really happy to be in this very important job. She looks really important and speaks with that “I am in charge of everything…” playing the part of a lawyer on TV.
It is the era of incompetence.
So Pam Bondi, who throws out “sex trafficking” with poorly faked disgust as a response to get out of answering any tough question, is overseeing the coddling of maybe the most notorious living sexual predator AND underage sex trafficker in America.
Victim testimony was that Ms. Maxwell initiated some of the Epstein assaults.
Tough on sex traffickers, indeed.
IIRC, court documents note Maxwell was not repentant or remorseful at sentencing. Of course nothing she witnessed the Felon doing would cause concern for her.
Here in New Mexico we have the 8000 acre Zorro Ranch near Stanley. Someone I know was an assessor and in visiting a nearby property strayed too close. An armed security detail in Jeeps surrounded him. Fortunately no problem. But the point is to the immense number of employees needed to run the place, as well The Island and Manhattan. Many many many people worked their jobs and said nothing. Most probably signed NDAs but I consider them all complicit.
The added benefit to Jeffrey Epstein from using his secret hideaway in a private enclave on the high desert in New Mexico was that teen victims who escaped his sex dungeon in the 50,000 sq. foot main house were not likely to be able to walk to safety.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Zorro_Ranch
https://newrepublic.com/article/154761/jeffrey-epstein-zorro-ranch-new-mexico-history
Having found the ranch house on an aerial photo – yeah, they wouldn’t have had a clue which way to go.
I have been wondering about New Mexico and if any journalist has ever thought to ask former US Attorney David Iglesias about Jeffrey Epstein and his NM enclave.
Iglesias was one of the USAs fired by the Bush admin in 2006; Iglesias suspected his firing had to do with state politics, but knowing what we know now about the investigation into Epstein, I have to wonder if this was the real driver for Iglesias’ termination and replacement by a more Bush-Cheney aligned USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys#Administration_rationale_unclear
I note with some interest that two of maxwells attorneys withdrew today.
Details are too few. We guess Blanche recorded things, if not having a court reporter, which is more likely. It will not be transcribed, so releasing of transcripts will be out of the question. This guess is even if Maxwell named some Dems as involved. Just bury the whole thing in back and forth between Maxwell lawyers and Blanche/DOJ, with House committee rejection of Maxwell testimonial conditions.. Eat time that way, etc. Ultimately the crowd will realize they’re being stiffed, but with excuses, and attention will wane. Remember, a Trump Solicitor General can bag the Supreme Court argument, Maxwell winning that the Florida plea exempts her being tried as liable.