"A simple question for Bondi today" at her Congressional hearing. Let's see if anyone asks it, and how she responds. [View all]

A simple question to ask Bondi today: Why did Blanche conduct the 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.

Feb. 11, 2026, 6:00 AM EST
By Jordan Rubin

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.

The truth does matter. That’s why Blanche was the wrong one to purportedly seek it in this situation.

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.