A former federal prosecutor blasted Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche during an interview on Wednesday after Democrats released documents from Jeffrey Epstein that undercut claims his associate, Ghislane Maxwell, made to Blanche after she was moved to a minimum security prison in Texas.
On Wednesday, an email from Epstein to Maxwell was released detailing President Donald Trump meeting one of Epstein's most well-known victims, Virginia Giuffre, at Epstein's home before he ran for office. That email directly contradicts the testimony Maxwell gave to Blanche, indicating that she never saw Trump at Epstein's home.
Mimi Rocah, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, discussed the impact of the email during an interview on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper."
"Todd Blanche works for the Department of Justice right now. He was purportedly doing a proffer interview to get information from Maxwell," Rocah said. "At a minimum, he didn't press her on anything, and we don't know for sure, but it's extremely likely that he knew about these emails. Even if he didn't, he should have asked her more pointed questions. He should have pressed her on his answers."
"He was negligent at best, and he was complicit in helping her essentially craft very specific answers," she continued. "If you look at her answers now, they are contradictory. But she would argue, well, that wasn't exactly the question that was asked, et cetera. That is not an information-gathering exercise. This was a 'give Donald Trump a clear pass, say that he didn't do anything wrong, and then we'll reward you.'"
"And we saw the reward, and we know she's trying to get some kind of pardon or clemency, in some form," she added. "And if Trump grants that, I actually think it would be the biggest sign that there is something more in addition to these emails, which are already quite incriminating, that she could say about him."
