Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met for a second day with Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and a long-time prosecutor and former general counsel at the FBI is warning it could all "blow up in their face."
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace noted on her Friday show that she can't understand why Blanche would ignore the career prosecutors who have been steeped in the case for years and are aware of the details.
New York University Law School Professor Andrew Weissmann connected the dots from the cases involving Epstein and Maxwell to other Justice Department scandals, such as the one involving Mayor Eric Adams.
"Mayor Eric Adams, where this administration learned to shut out the career people," said Weissmann. "If you are trying to get the defendant or in this case, Ghislaine Maxwell, to say something that will help Donald Trump, if that's your goal and it's not about sort of justice writ large, it is a continuation of your work for the president. In other words, you were his personal attorney, and you are still essentially operating as his personal attorney. If that's your goal, you do not want the career prosecutors and agents in the room for the same reason you didn't want them in the room for Eric Adams."
In the Adams case, top Justice Department lawyers, including those appointed to lead the offices in the Trump administration, bucked the new leader and came forward with details about the case.
"You're not engaging in what's in the public interest. You're engaging in what is in Donald Trump's interest, and whether that is to exonerate Donald Trump, as Tim [Miller] suggested, or whether it's to implicate other people. So, it's sort of a distraction. Those are things that Todd Blanche can do and can do better when he doesn't have career people in the room," Weissmann clarified.
Weissmann said the key thing will be to watch whether career lawyers or career FBI agents come forward as some did in the Adams case.
"They will know whether this is a corrupt deal. They will know whether Ghislaine Maxwell should be believed in terms of what she is saying, whether you could actually even do," he continued.
"Just to be clear, just so people understand what's going on in my head, there is no way you can do a thorough interview and know what Ghislaine Maxwell has to offer, truthfully, in two days, if you are not already steeped in the facts," he added. "Two days is already way too short, even if you know the facts to make that kind of judgment. And, so, all of that is a huge red flag. And to me, this could end up really blowing up in their face if they are doing this for the reasons Tim suggests."
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