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- [00:03]
A
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 oh, not what an A. I should hasten to add, Liz was a senior lawyer in 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, is 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.
- [01:01]
B
Thanks for having me on, Bill.
- [01:04]
A
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 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 particular aspect of the COVID up for the Bureau of Prisons and so forth.
- [01:35]
B
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 from a low security prison in Florida to a minimum security prison Camp in Texas. That is incredibly unusual for a couple of.
- [02:26]
A
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. Without the. Without the prosecutors, without the people who knew anything about the case and so forth.
- [02:45]
B
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 Warren 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 pull political crisis for Donald Trump, who we all know is Todd Blanch's number one forever client.
- [04:19]
A
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?
- [04:27]
B
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's 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 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, she got this as a benefit. It clearly appears that it was a benefit for her providing this sort of exculpatory statement about Donald Trump to Todd Blanche.
- [07:16]
A
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 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 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 would have the meeting, you would consider her testimony, go back and consult with your colleagues about her testimony. Blanche walks out and said, I don't know, I can't really judge. Maybe she's telling the truth, maybe she's not. Which is really 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.
- [08:13]
B
Right.
- [08:14]
A
I mean, that they don't even like pretend it was three months later. They didn't create a fake, so far as we know. Bureau of Prisons paper chain about your paper trail about wealth. It's really important to transfer her for some reason or other to. They seem to have concocted this thing or she was having threats or something like that at the other place. Right.
- [08:30]
B
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. 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's 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 shoe. That stands for Special Housing Unit. And you can be sent to the shoe 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 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't have 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 Ghislaine Maxwell should be housed in as a sex offender, but it's not. 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.
- [12:12]
A
It'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 searched. Justice wasn't 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, that 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. They sort of. We'll talk about it.
- [12:46]
B
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, 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. 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 Director of 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 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. 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 Glenn Maxwell.
- [15:53]
A
Yeah, I think Maxwell also, for Trump would have been a particularly. 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, 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 of 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 alleging was made by him. I exposed by him. And without consulting his boss, Todd Blanche,
- [17:17]
B
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.