← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Liz Oyer
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- [01:01]
Bill Crystal
hi, Bill Crystal here for Bull Work Live on Sunday. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Liz Oyer, who has a wonderful substack that everyone should read conveniently named Lawyer Oyer, the lawyer spelled with an O not with an A. I should hasten to add Liz was a senior lawyer and the Justice Department for Joe Biden, the pardon attorney and Trump's abuse of the pardon power, something we should you've written a lot about and we should discuss it some other time. People don't quite appreciate how dangerous it is. I think, you know, having the ability and the willingness to pardon everyone in the private sector and who's working for you who are committing various crimes and put that the dynamic that sets up. But that's another, that's a depressing topic for another day. But Liz has been writing excellently on with Todd Blanche's nomination pending and with hearings coming what, less than three weeks I guess on Blanche's role in the Epstein cover up and particularly with Maxwell Ghislaine Maxwell. So I just wanted to talk about that today if that's okay. Anyway, Liz, thanks for, thanks for joining me.
- [02:00]
Liz Oyer
Thanks for having me on, Bill.
- [02:02]
Bill Crystal
So you had a terrific post this week on you know what Blanche has been doing a couple I guess this weekend with regard to Maxwell. But maybe it's worth walking people just through as he was deputy attorney general obviously and when, when he was in charge as Attorney General. Pambadi said he was of the sort of Epstein affair, so to speak, and then famously went to see Maxwell. But why don't you walk us through maybe the backstory and then a little bit of what you write about. We can get to the sort of the particular aspect of the COVID up for the Bureau of Prisons and so forth.
- [02:34]
Liz Oyer
But yeah, yeah. With Blanche's confirmation hearing coming up in a couple of weeks, I've been really drilling down into his record. He has this incredible record at this point that he didn't have when he went through his confirmation hearings as Deputy Attorney General. But now we know exactly how far he's willing to go to cover for Donald Trump. And there's a menu of options to choose from of the most corrupt actions that he's taken to date. But one that is high on my list is this prison transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell that he orchestrated as Deputy Attorney General. He traveled to Florida, where she was originally incarcerated, and met with her over the course of two days. And very shortly after that meeting, she was transferred. Transferred from a low security prison in Florida to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. That is incredibly unusual for a couple of.
- [03:25]
Bill Crystal
Go back just one second though, talk about. So that's really the key thing. But just how incredible is it and unusual for the Deputy AG to personally fly down and meet with a convicted sex offender alone, I guess, right? Or with. No, without the pro, without the prosecutors, without the people who knew anything about the case and so forth?
- [03:43]
Liz Oyer
Yeah, it's absolutely shocking. I mean, everyone who's ever worked at the Justice Department, their jaws were dropping when the news broke that Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General, who is the number two official at that point at the Justice Department, was personally traveling to Florida to meet with a convicted sex trafficker serving a 20 year prison sentence. She is somebody who the Department of Justice had determined was not credible, somebody that they believe lied in depositions and sworn, sworn testimony previously. And she's somebody who at that point had every incentive to say anything that she believed might benefit her or help her get out from under this 20 year prison sentence she was serving. So why anyone from the Justice Department is talking to her at all, it makes no sense whatsoever. But the idea that the number two official in the department who has a whole lot on his plate is personally devoting two days to going to meet with her is really truly stunning. I cannot overemphasize how just absolutely bananas it is that Todd Blanche would go down there in person to meet with her. And what made it even weirder is that this new attorney came on the case right at the time of that meeting. This guy named David Marcus, who's a Florida based lawyer who has a long standing relationship with Blanche. And it looks like Blanche brought in Marcus to represent Maxwell so that they could cut some sort of corrupt deal that would both benefit Maxwell and solve a puzzle political crisis for Donald Trump, who we all know is Todd Blanche's number one forever client.
- [05:18]
Bill Crystal
Yeah. And who he literally was represented when people sort of forgotten that, too, that he was actually his defense lawyer. Right. What a wonderful small world they have going there, you know?
- [05:26]
Liz Oyer
Yeah. Yes. And one of. One of the details that really just gets me about this story is David Marcus gave an interview to Politico about his representation of Maxwell. And one of the details he noted about this meeting was that Maxwell was permitted to have a special meal of her choosing when she met with the Deputy Attorney general. And she requested, and this is a quote from her lawyer, she requested Camembert cheese and fresh French bread. And he said that he couldn't find Camembert, but he got her the best he could find at a Publix, and it was Brie and the bread was fresh, and she was very, very happy with her meal. So that really just kind of encapsulates the level of bizarre corruption and this sort of transactional nature of what' happening here. Blanche let her have her cheese. They met. It was a total sham meeting because she's got no credibility whatsoever. But Blanche walked out of that meeting with what he was looking for, which was a statement from Maxwell saying that Donald Trump never did anything improper with Jeffrey Epstein. Fast forward less than a week, and Maxwell is moved from this prison in Florida to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. That is really, really significant because the Bureau of Prisons has a very complex set of regulations that determine where federal prisoners serve their time. And the regulations specifically prohibit anyone who is convicted of a sex offense from serving their sentence in a minimum security prison camp. The reason for that is that these camps are essentially open to the community. These are facilities that have no fencing, no secure perimeter around them. The people who are incarcerated there are actually in many cases, allowed to work outside of the facility. They're essentially able to just walk off into the community. So for the protection of the community, the Bureau of Prisons has a rule that says that anyone convicted of a sex offense, which would include sex trafficking of minors, which is what Maxwell was convicted of, has to be housed in at least a low security facility. The Bureau of prisons has over 120 different prisons around the country. Dozens of them house women and most women are housed in either a low security or a minimum security facility. Maxwell was in the low security facility and she didn't like it and she was transferred by Todd Blanche. And I can dive into why we know it was by Todd Blanche to this minimum security facility. And according to her own statements, she is much happier there. She's found that the food is better, the amenities are nicer, the living conditions are nicer, and she got this as a benefit. It clearly appears that it was a benefit for her providing this sort of excul statement about Donald Trump to Todd Blanche.
- [08:15]
Bill Crystal
I remember at the time, just, I couldn't believe it, that, I mean, watching it from outside and not as a lawyer, but just as a kind of political observer, let's say, or government, someone who served in government a bit. I mean that this was happening so quickly. I mean, that is, if they wanted to do this, they'll have whatever corrupt deal they were, you know, signaling or winking to each other about or maybe explicitly discussing, who knows what Marcus and Blanche discussed and Marcus then passed on to Maxwell. But in any case, you know, you would have the meeting, you would consider her test to go back and consult with your colleagues about her testimony. Blanche walks out and says, I don't know, I can't really judge. You know, maybe she's telling the truth, maybe she's not. Which is really an astonishing statement for someone who's, who's lied consistently and continues to clearly lie. I mean, it's not even, it's laughable to even pretend. It's an open question about what she knew about what Epstein was doing and given the unbelievable amount of testimony about what, how horrible a co conspirator she was. But anyway, as you say, it was within a week, as I recall. Right. I mean that you. They don't even like pretend it was three months later. They didn't create a fake so far as we know. Bureau, prisons, paper chain about your paper trail about wealth. It's really important to transfer her. For some reason or other, they seem to have concocted this thing or she was having threats or something like that at the other place. Right?
- [09:29]
Liz Oyer
I mean, yeah, yeah, there have been some made up rationales afterwards and to your point about the interview being a sham, I mean, Blanche didn't show her a single document during the interview, which is pretty stunning. We know that there are millions of documents that relate to this case and a very common technique of any trained attorney, when you're interviewing a witness is to put documents in front of them to test the truthfulness of what they're saying. Blanche did not want to test Maxwell, so he didn't show her any documents. And interestingly, this interview came just about a week or two after the Justice Department fired the lead prosecutor who put Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. That was Maureen Comey, the daughter of Jim Comey, who's now been indicted. And she's the person in the department who was undoubtedly most knowledgeable about Maxwell, about the documents, about the facts. And if you wanted somebody really to get to the truth of it, you would have put her, the lawyer who tried the case and convicted her and secured this 20 year prison sentence in the room with Ghislaine Maxwell, not the deputy Attorney general who's got not a single document with him. So it really just illustrates that the whole thing was a sham. And then came this explanation, sort of a sham explanation of why she was transferred. You're right, he said something about threats to her safety as the basis for the transfer. There was no substantiated threats. He didn't corroborate any threats, but he just sort of said, well, there were threats to her safety, so we transferred her. Now, that doesn't actually make any sense because that's not how the Bureau of Prisons deals with threats to someone's safety if they are incarcerated. There is a special type of housing unit within every prison called a shu that stands for Special Housing Unit. And you can be sent to the SHU because you break the rules of the prison, but you can also be sent to the SHU if you need extra protection from the general population. Essentially, the SHU is a secure facility within the main facility where you're segregated from the rest of the population. You would be housed in a cell instead of a dormitory type housing, which is what Maxwell would have been in in the general population. And that is how regular people are treated if they're actually subjected to threats. I was a public defender for 10 years, and I had numerous clients who spent months at a time in the shoe because they were assaulted or they were subjected to serious threats from other incarcerated people. So if you're a regular person, you don'. Information on that that can help Donald Trump. You don't have a special connection with Todd Blanche. You'll be put in the shoe and they won't give it another thought. And that's how they would deal with a threat against your safety. But for Ghislaine Maxwell, she got this very special first Class treatment, which is. Which involved transferring her to a lower security facility. There's no reason why you would transfer someone to a lower security facility even if they did need a transfer. There are many women's facilities that are at the low security level, which is what Glenn Maxwell should be housed in as a sex offender. But instead of transferring her to another low security facility, she was transferred to a minimum security camp where she now has all of these special privileges. According to the Bureau of Prisons most recent data, There are about 20,000 sex offenders currently in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons. And there is not one single other one who is known to be housed in a minimum security facility like Glenn Maxwell because it violates all of the rules and it's not safe for the community.
- [13:13]
James and Dan
Hi, everyone. This is James and Dan. We are two fourths of the hit UK podcast, no Such Thing as a Fish. That's right. Every week we sit down behind some microphones and share with each other the best things we found out over the last seven days. Yes. So for instance, Dan, did you know that you cannot tie a knot in four dimensions? I knew that's where I was going wrong. Interesting. There are all sorts of reasons why, but we would go into them all on our podcast along with loads of extra facts as well. That's right. And if you want to check it out, no Such Thing as a Fish is available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [13:49]
Bill Crystal
That's amazing. It's really amazing. And then if I recall, I mean, this was Blanche. I mean, I think it was reported at the time and it was known to people like you served to justice. It wasn't a secret that the Bureau of Prisons reports to the Deputy ag. And so one assumed that, Mac, that this had been done by the Bureau of Prisons, either at Blanche's order or in sort of anticipation of what he would want to be done or some indirect perhaps way this was communicated. But then there was this pretty amazing statement. And you wrote about this and looked into this by the Bureau of Prisons, what, a few weeks ago, maybe where they sort of. We'll talk about it.
- [14:23]
Liz Oyer
Yeah, yeah. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Bureau of Prisons put out a post on their official X account saying essentially that they need to correct the record about what happened with Glenn Maxwell. And they were responding to a post by Congressman Robert Garcia who had some of his staff visit the prison camp in Texas to see exactly what was going on there. And they said, you know, this has gotten out of control and we need to correct the record. And, you know, the suggestion that she got special treatment is absolutely false. And so they go on to explain that Maxwell was transferred because she, they could not keep her safe at this other facility and she needed to be moved for her own safety. This was nothing out of the ordinary. This is typical standard Bureau of Prisons procedure. And then they say that Todd Blanch, the Deputy Attorney General, had nothing to do with it. They say this was an independent decision of the Bureau of Prisons. That is just incredibly misleading because the Bureau of Prisons is not independent from Todd Blanche. The. The Bureau of Prisons reports directly to Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche is his immediate supervisor and boss. And that's something that Blanche has actually acknowledged before. He said something to the effect that every decision of the Bureau of Prisons lands on his desk. He has posted on social media describing his close relationship with the Director of the Bureau of Prisons in the past. So the idea that this was an independent decision really makes no sense. And one question that this raises for me is Donald Trump, on January 20th of 2025, the day that he was inaugurated, fired the previous director of the Bureau of Prisons. He then about two months later, hand picked a replacement, this guy, William Marshall iii, who now reports to Todd Blanche. And that just really raises some questions, like why is it a day one priority for Trump to fire the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, who's a career official, not a political appointee, someone who is expected to run that institution, that part of the Justice Department in a non political way, regardless of who's the president? Why does Donald Trump need to fire the Director of the Bureau of Prisons on day one and hand pick a replacement? It really just doesn't make any sense unless you are trying to politicize the prison system. That sounds pretty outlandish, but we've really reached the point where everything that is not nailed down is for sale under this administration. And it looks like that includes special treatment in the prison system. There has never been a first class status in prison, but now it looks like there is. There's actually a federal law that prohibits giving special treatment to incarcerated people based on wealth or social status. And it looks like Donald Trump just fundamentally disagrees with that idea and wants people who can help him to be able to get special treatment in the prison system. Like Ghislaine Maxwell.
- [17:30]
Bill Crystal
Yeah, I think Maxwell also, for Trump, would have been a particular. I mean, he generally is happy to reward his friends and punish his enemies and do so in all kinds of ways, which might include better prison status. We know it includes pardons, incumbency, obviously, but Maxwell was On his mind. I mean, he said in 2020, I believe, that he was sympathetic to Maxwell or he wished her well or something like that. He obviously was well aware of the whole Epstein situation. And Maxwell, he knew Maxwell well. I mean, that's, you know, back 20 years before at least. And so it's not as if this was like some obscure thing to him. So the. Yeah. The idea of having some interest in the Bureau of Prisons and then having an interest in how she was treated, we don't know. I suppose if Trump and Blanche discussed the treatment of Maxwell or Flash, he might have been smart enough not to mention that he was about to do what he did in terms of transferring her, not to mention that to Trump. But he might have. I don't believe, I don't know that he's testified under oath to that question, whether he discussed it with Trump as Marshall. I hadn't really thought about this. Has he tested. I mean, so the statement, maybe I'm wrong about this. The statement, as you say, it was a post on X, was sort of generically from the Bureau of Prisons. I mean, it's one of these press release type things. It was not in Marshall's own name, as I recall. Right. It's not a first person statement. And is he actually either publicly or certainly under oath to Congress, testified about why he. Why he made this decision, which they now are alleging was made by him? I exposed by him, and without consulting his boss, Todd Blanche.
- [18:55]
Liz Oyer
He has not been asked by Congress, to my knowledge. A couple of Democratic members have sent him letters asking for information, but he has not been formally asked to provide testimony, which is really a failure by Congress because this raises a lot of questions. I've listed in my substack post a whole bunch of different documents that would have had to be completed by the Bureau of Prisons to effectuate Maxwell's transfer. And Congress should be asking Marshall to produce these documents so that they can find out what really happened here. There's also this really stunning new policy change that was signed by Director Marshall that flew under the radar. He just kind of slid it in. And I want to talk about that for a minute because it has major implications for this case and for others. The Bureau of Prisons has essentially a manual that's about 120 pages long that lays out exactly how they classify inmates, how they determine what your security level is and what type of risk prison you should go to. And that's the process that Maxwell would have gone through to conclude that she has to go to a low security facility. Not a camp. This manual has been in place for over 20 years and it's only been amended twice previously. But recently William Marshall signed a new amendment back in May, about six or seven weeks ago, that gives the Attorney General the authority to essentially override all of the rules and regulations in this detailed manual and just dictate where a federal inmate should serve their sentence. So essentially, Todd Blanche could tell William Marshall, I want you to send Ghalan Maxwell here, or I want you to send anyone to any particular facility and that would override all of the existing rules and regulations. The implications of that are pretty obvious. In the Maxwell case, she could get special treatment at the direction of Todd Blanche, but the implications are actually much further reaching as well. Essentially, anyone who is a friend or ally of the President could be given special, which creates the opportunity for a pay for play system like what we've seen with pardons. If you want to donate a couple million dollars to Donald Trump, maybe you could upgrade your living accommodations while you're serving your prison sentence. If you can't get a pardon, at least you could get a transfer to a minimum security camp. And perhaps even scarier is the idea that the Attorney General could dictate that enemies of the President serve their time in the worst possible conditions. There's one facility, for example in Colorado called adx. It's an administrative maximum security facility where you are locked down in a cell almost all of the time. It is reserved for people who've committed crimes involving terrorism, extremely violent offenses, people who cannot safely be housed in normal prisons. But there's nothing under this rule that would prevent Todd Blanche from deciding that a political enemy of the President or somebody who's locked up for protesting ICE or for protesting the administration should serve their time in a super maximum security prison. So it is really a very scary rule that is inconsistent with many decades of Bureau of Prison policy and practice. And it was just kind of snuck in there. It's flu flew under the radar. There was no announcement of this rule change and to my knowledge, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons has not been asked to explain what happened there or why this change was made.
- [22:20]
Bill Crystal
Yeah, that is, that is genuinely scary. And it's only under their theory of the Trump's theory and I suppose Blanche's theory and his and the Justice Department, current Justice Department's theory of the unitary executive. Trump can order Blanche to move someone someplace, right? There's no, there's no line anywhere. God knows there's no wall or even for any kind of wall between justice and the White House anymore. So I mean, Trump's made that perfectly clear. He's busy telling various, various various US Attorneys what to do and you know, picking up the phone or talking to. Right.
- [22:50]
Liz Oyer
So yeah, I mean the, the justice system is basically, he can bend it to his will through numerous different mechanisms. This new policy is one pardons or another. He can essentially undercut an ongoing prosecution by the Justice Department or wipe out a recently imposed conviction or sentence at his will. And Trump has been doing that freely. He has been using the pardon power, it appears, without consulting the Justice Department to determine whether it's consistent with the interests of justice. And it has had a very destructive effect on the perceived legitimacy of the pardon power as well as the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. Because now there is this special level of treatment that you can access if you have political connections or wealth.
- [23:37]
Bill Crystal
Yeah, no, it's really, this is, I mean this is a very classic, obviously authoritarian thing. But yeah, the degree to which it's all happening, I guess I am struck by this, that I mean, I've been struck by the stuff the government and DoD, DHS, DoJ that, I mean they are for all their buffoonishness to some degree, these Trump and his henchmen and henchwomen, I guess, and they screw various things up because they're not that good at it sometimes. The degree to which they have really pretty systematically tried to go change the levers, organize the levers of power in the way you're describing in these different places. You see it very much in DoD, which I think is very alarming. It's done ham handedly and not sometimes the PR isn't very good at all, but they are making it and they have people in there, it seems to me. I'm curious since you were a DOJ until January 20th, I guess 2025, whether I'm right or wrong about this, they have now gotten enough people in there and gotten rid of enough of other people and driven away a lot of other people who can't honorably feel they can't honor we serve there, that they have people, not just the very top level, but at the second and third and fourth levels willing to make these things happen. Right. I mean it's not. Marshall has, has deputies and assistants who are we all doing this? Right?
- [24:52]
Liz Oyer
Well that's, that's actually a big part of the problem. So I, so my personal story, I was not a political appointee as pardon attorney. The pardon attorney has always been reserved until now for a non political official because the idea is that the pardon power shouldn't be political. It should be exercised in an even handed that promotes mercy and fairness, and that is not based on personal or political relationships. So it was my intent to stay into the Trump administration and continue to serve that role. And I actually managed to do that for seven weeks before I was fired. And the reason I was fired, I was fired after I was asked to make a recommendation that the Justice Department reinstate the gun ownership rights of a friend of the President who had a conviction for domestic violence. The actor Mel Gibson, who had been convicted in a high profile incident of battering his ex girlfriend, had written a letter to the Justice Department and was asking to get his gun rights back. And this is something that the Attorney General has the legal authority to do, but she didn't want to just do it. She wanted to get a career official to write a letter saying this is a good idea so that it didn't look like a naked political favorite. So I was asked to be that career official and write that letter, and I declined to do it because I had a lot of data in front of me that suggested that it is very dangerous. When domestic abusers are in possession of a firearm, it increases by 500% the likelihood that the victim of their abuse will be killed. So without knowing anything other than what was in this letter, which said, you know, Mel Gibson is a friend of the President, he was made a special ambassador to Hollywood by Donald Trump, and he made all these famous movies. The letter literally listed all of his famous movies and he'd like his gun rights back. That wasn't enough of a basis for me to be able to make that recommendation. And so I wasn't going to do that. I communicated that I couldn't do that, and literally within hours, I was fired. But that's an example of how important it is to have career people who have knowledge and expertise to promote sound decision making and how dangerous it is to eliminate those people from those non political roles in the department, which is something that's happened on an incredible scale. I mean, thousands of career department attorneys have left under Donald Trump, which means their expertise goes out the window. The willingness to say no goes out the window. And it frees up this administration to make incredibly dangerous decisions that are based on either ignorance or on nefarious motives. The desire to do political favors or to help people who are friends of the president or have the ability to help the president in return. That's what we've seen on a large scale. And it is very scary. And my deep concern is that we have not yet seen the dangerous consequences that that will eventually have for the Justice Department. I mean, my firing is just one example among many. There was a purge of senior national security officials in the department very early on. Those are people who have special expertise that is needed to help prevent things like terrorist attacks and mass casualty events. So we really have not probably seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the damage that has been done at the Justice Department under Todd Blanche's leadership. In part. And for all of those reasons, I think it is very important that the Senate step up and take a close look at his record, take a close look at the. The state of that institution and not just rubber stamp his confirmation as the next attorney general.
- [28:28]
Bill Crystal
No, it really is scary. I've also struck just as little different, I think, the way in which people are hired as career or political. But when I was in government many years ago at the Education Department, it was a pretty firm distinction. Career people had to be hired in certain ways and competitive merit process and so forth, some discretion for the politicals to sort of take a look and. But pretty limited, I'd say. And my impression that was the norm. And maybe the actual legal situation just that's been eroded so much, that distinction. So it's not just that many career people have been fired. It's also they've been replaced maybe nominally in what are still, what are still nominally career positions by, in effect, political appointees, though. I mean, and I know this at other departments, I know a little more about this. And you see it visibly with Hegseth firing general officers. No. For rolling parosha board and, and, and. And purging certain people he doesn't like who are on the list that have been approved in an effect for a career process, you might say, in the military. Right. I mean, that also. You do that. It's one thing for a year and a half, another year and a half, another two years of that. The whole character of these departments starts to change in a pretty radical way, I think.
- [29:36]
Liz Oyer
Very much so. We've seen at the Justice Department, they've actually dropped the minimum experience requirement. So there's no requirement of prior legal experience now to work at the Justice Department. Justice Department department, which is new. They're offering signing bonuses to try to get people in the door. And the people who are coming in have almost no legal experience. And they're replacing lawyers who may have had 10 or 20 or more years of prior experience. And that experience is really valuable. The Justice Department has incredibly important responsibilities for protecting public safety, for upholding civil rights, and for protecting the rule of law in this country. And you can't do that with people who have no idea what they're doing. You can't do that without an experienced and skilled staff, which they do not currently have.
- [30:23]
James and Dan
Hi, everyone, this is James and Dan. We are two fourths of the hit UK podcast no Such Thing as a Fish. That's right. Every week we sit down behind some microphones and share with each other the best things we found out over the last seven days. Yes. So, for instance, Dan, did you know that you cannot tie a knot in four dimensions? I knew that's where I was going wrong. Interesting. There are all sorts of reasons why, but we would go into them all on our podcast along with loads of extra facts as well. That's right. And if you want to check it out, no Such Thing as a Fish is available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [31:00]
Bill Crystal
But also they have the one idea they do have of what they're doing. I think it's slightly worse than you're saying. It's not just they don't. They know what they want to do, which is to do whatever Trump wants. And people like you, and this is a good, good, you're in a way, a good instance, I think, of someone who's been had other jobs, who has a standing, has an understanding of what the job is supposed to imply and what procedures you're supposed to honor and where occasionally you might also decide some of these procedures need to be tweaked. But I mean, you have, you're operating for a basis, not just experience, but a certain independent standing. You might say. That's the one thing they hate. I've noticed that very much in the military. Anyone with any independence standing is a threat to them. Bondi tried to get you to, in effect give up your independent standing and you wouldn't do it. But, and that, that does get to the broader question. I mean, what, what a Justice Department under Blanche, after two more years, I mean, already doesn't look much like a Justice Department, if we could be honest.
- [31:53]
Liz Oyer
But yeah, yeah, yeah. It was actually Blanche who fired me on. He'd only been. It was two days after his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General that he delivered me this three sentence letter saying, you're fired, effective immediately. He didn't do it in person, of course. He had security staff in the department handed to me. I'd never laid eyes on the man. And one of his first acts as Deputy Attorney General was to fire Me after his office made this request that I write this memo making this recommendation, and I said no.
- [32:21]
Bill Crystal
And did he invoke Article 2 authority or is there any authority they need to invoke? There's no cause.
- [32:27]
Liz Oyer
He invoked Article 2 authority. And I've been litigating this for over a year and my case has gone nowhere because the Justice Department has really been just kind of stonewalling, getting to any resolution of this. But following my firing, there was quite a crazy course of retaliation that ensued. I spoke up about my firing because I was very alarmed about what was going on inside the Justice Department. And the deputy Attorney general accused me of lying publicly. He then had armed U.S. marshals sent to my home to intimidate me before I was scheduled to testify before members of Congress about this. He then filed a misconduct complaint with the DC Bar, where I'm licensed against me. So they don't like it when you push back or when you speak out about the corruption. And I've been someone who's been doing that, and I have faced a lot of retaliation as a result. But I think it is really important that we not normalize what's going on in the Justice Department and that we not just accept as a fate accompli that Todd Blanche will be confirmed as the next Attorney general.
- [33:32]
Bill Crystal
No, I think that's so well said. So maybe in conclusion, what advice for senators and their staff and others who are talking to them a lot about what to focus on in these hearings? What, what to how to what, you know, what other witnesses they might want to call. What since the Democrats presumably do get to call some witnesses, just generally I'm sort of. You've thought a lot about how to take advantage of this. I mean, take advantage of this quite different. Or how do you. This is a moment that. That Trump is invited. So he didn't have to nominate Ty Blanche to be Attorney General. In fact, many people thought he would just keep misacting for at least another Twitter days, wherever much longer they had, because it's in a way more convenient, as Trump himself has said, to have acting rather than Senate confirmed. People in some ways they have. They have to make promises when they get confirmed and there's a record and so forth. But I'm just curious. So this is something they've asked for and Blanche wants to be confirmed. So what would Senators who are doing their duty in a serious way, particularly relation to the Epstein Maxwell matter, but more broadly as well, what should they be asking and looking for?
- [34:35]
Liz Oyer
Blanche has a really long record now that he didn't have when they considered his nomination for deputy Attorney general. And I think that the senators really need to drill down into the facts of his record and demand answers. He said in his first confirmation hearing, he said to Thom Tillis, who is a key vote in getting him confirmed now, that he promised that there would not be a whiff of a political investigation under his leadership if he was confirmed as deputy Attorney general. That has proven to be utterly false. There have been nothing but political investigations coming from the Justice Department. So I think that that should signal strongly to the members of the Judiciary Committee that they can't just take Blanche's word for it. They should believe nothing that he says. They should demand accountability by showing him facts and documents and asking him to explain himself. I provided essentially a roadmap in my most recent substack post for members of the committee about how to get to the truth about Maxwell and the prison transfer. I hope that they will get the necessary documents from the Bureau of Prisons, put them in front of Todd Blanche, and demonstrate that he did a corrupt act here and that he is lying to cover it up. The senators on the Judiciary Committee really need to do their homework here. They need to come armed with facts and information and documents, and they need to not let Todd Blanche get away with gaslighting and false promises, which we know is what he did during his confirmation hearing for deputy Attorney general.
- [36:09]
Bill Crystal
Now, you make such a good point that, I mean, now there's a year and a half, almost a year and a half record. So it's not, you know, when he's first nominated, okay, he was Trump's defense lawyer, but he was at a major firm and he was at sdny. So give him the benefit of the doubt. But that, as you say, we're in a very, very different situation now. It really would be a disgrace if they have the same attitude that they had a year and a half ago.
- [36:31]
Liz Oyer
Yeah, yeah, that's right. And, you know, he's somebody who career employees of the Justice Department believed that he was going to come in at the start of the administration and reset things, bring us back to normal after the reign of Emil Bovey, who you may recall is the one who was presiding over the sort of immigration enforcement and said, we've got to tell the courts f you, if they don't want to, if they want to try to stop our deportations. He was a scary guy. And people in the Justice Department really believed that Blanche was going to come in and restore some level of normalcy because he had worked as a career prosecutor before he was a mainstream legal figure. And that just did not happen. Far from it. The opposite happened. I mean, he really just sort of normalized the total corruption of the place place and finish the work that Bove had started.
- [37:23]
Bill Crystal
Well, let's hope that senators do the right thing. I mean, of course you mentioned Bobay reminds me that he was, of course, having done all the things you mentioned, he was confirmed as a circuit court judge by the United States Senate, you know, a few months later, so.
- [37:35]
Liz Oyer
Right, yeah. I mean, my hope is that some of these, I hope that some of these senators who are now newly untethered from Trump because he's essentially ended their political careers might think a little more closely about Blanche's nomination. And I hope that some of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, for example, Katie Britt, who's early in her career and, you know, has to think about life after Trump, will give some thought to this important decision. And do they really want to rubber stamp this person who has demonstrated himself to be corrupt and not acting in the interest of the American people to serve as the next Attorney General of the United States? I hope that some of these folks will give this real careful consideration which is it deserves and which the American people deserve.
- [38:19]
Bill Crystal
And I would just say from my point of view, I think some of the Democratic senators and other Democrats who aren't on the committee could do a little more to highlight the importance of this and what you've been talking about, just the incredible corruption here in this, what in the Epstein case, in the Maxwell case, but what the broader implications of that are, as well as other instances. Of course, I'm not sure that, you know, what about this set of prisons. Why hasn't, why, you know, why couldn't one tie up an awful lot of things in the Senate or in the Congress until we get, until he testifies under oath. Right. That's perfectly legitimate thing to ask for. Just, just, I just feel like there's a lot that they're being, some of the Democrats are playing a little bit by old fashioned rules and totally unprecedented circumstances, I think.
- [39:02]
Liz Oyer
Yeah, absolutely. I don't know why the, the director of the Bureau of Prisons has not been summoned to testify yet. I hope that he will be because he will have some explaining to do.
- [39:12]
Bill Crystal
Now, look, this has been not exactly cheering, but extremely enlightening. And really I admire what you've done over the last year and a half and I think it's so important. And thank you for your clarity in laying this out clearly. And people should go if they want more details, certainly go to your substack posts. And you're on other programs as well, obviously. But this has been very helpful and let's hope the Senate rises to the occasion. And two and a half weeks.
- [39:39]
Liz Oyer
I hope so. Thanks so much for having me on, Bill. And I'm going to be sharing a letter soon that I am working on to the Judiciary Committee talking about my own experience with Todd Blanche. And I'll have that up on my substack. And I hope that folks who are concerned about this issue will read it and follow the instructions that I've provided. To reach out to your own senators, to ask them to ask Todd Blanche the hard questions and to oppose his confirmation as attorney General.
- [40:05]
Bill Crystal
Oh, that's great. And House members obviously have oversight, too, so they can, they can do their own thing, even if it's not in the confirmation context. So, Liz, thanks so much for joining me today, really. Thank you, Bill. And thank you all for joining us on Bulwark on Sunday.
- [40:20]
James and Dan
Hi, everyone. This is James and Dan. We are two fourths of the hit UK podcast, no Such Thing as a Fish. That's right. Every week we sit down behind some microphones and share with each other the best, best things we found out over the last seven days. Yes. So, for instance, Dan, did you know that you cannot tie a knot in four dimensions? I knew that's where I was going wrong. Interesting. There are all sorts of reasons why, but we would go into them all on our podcast along with loads of extra facts as well. That's right. And if you want to check it out, no Such Thing as a Fish is available wherever you get your podcasts.