Deadline Legal Blog-A simple question to ask Bondi today: Why did Blanche conduct the Maxwell proffer?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The former Trump criminal defense lawyer, who hadn’t worked on the Epstein associate’s prosecution, was nonetheless the one who personally met with her.

A simple question to ask Pam Bondi at her congressional hearing today: Why did Todd Blanche conduct the Ghislaine Maxwell proffer?

The former Trump criminal defense lawyer, who hadn’t worked on the Epstein associate’s prosecution, was nonetheless the one who personally met with her.

— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T13:43:42.293Z

https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/bondi-congressional-testimony-blanche-ghislaine-maxwell

Here’s a simple question to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi at her congressional hearing Wednesday: Why was Todd Blanche the one to conduct a proffer of Ghislaine Maxwell?

Blanche, the highest-ranking Justice Department official under Bondi and a former Donald Trump defense lawyer, led the interviews of the convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate over the summer. The deputy attorney general said that he reached out to Maxwell at Bondi’s direction.

But on top of Blanche’s enduring allegiance to Trump and the clear conflict it creates, he was an odd choice to question Maxwell about any actionable Epstein-related information she might have — that is, if the point was to properly collect and analyze such information.

Though it might seem like sending in a high-ranking official puts more legal muscle behind the endeavor, the opposite is true when it comes to conducting proffer sessions. That’s because those interviews are typically led by the prosecutors who have actually worked on the cases and investigations at issue, as they’d know what to ask and how to assess the value of the defendant’s answers.

Therefore, between Blanche’s loyalty to Trump and the fact that he wasn’t well-positioned to conduct the inquiry, he was doomed to fail in any competent and respectable investigation. While he wasn’t naive about the situation, it still falls under Bondi’s purview as attorney general, and it’s therefore a proper avenue of congressional oversight examination. ....

And that’s what makes the question of why Bondi sent him to do so a challenging one for her to answer honestly. She either tasked Blanche with a political mission to please their boss at the expense of doing the job of a prosecutor, or she didn’t understand the job of a prosecutor. Either answer would reflect that she’s in the wrong job herself.

[AZJonnie]

1. 3rd option is that answers "because the President has a great deal of confidence in Blanche" type thing

Which is also a terrible answer.

I like this question, hope it happens!