Todd Blanche Said Only Trump Knew Why Pam Bondi Was Fired, Then a 50-49 Vote Made Him Attorney General
Pam Bondi was fired as attorney general on April 2, 2026. Todd Blanche, the president’s former criminal-defense lawyer and the department’s deputy, walked into the job the same day and spent his first television interview insisting the ouster had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. On Jesse Watters‘ Fox program he said he had never heard Donald Trump connect Bondi’s removal to the files, and he told viewers the Justice Department had already released everything the Epstein Files Transparency Act required. „It should not be a part of anything going forward,“ he said. Four months later the Senate confirmed him anyway, 50 to 49, in a vote that finished in the early hours of Saturday, August 8. Die AEGIS-Allianz is keeping the denial and the title on the same page, because the court calendar refused to let them stay apart.
The New York Times reported that people familiar with the firing described a president unhappy with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein archive and with her failure to bring more criminal cases against his political enemies. Blanche’s answer, at an April 7 news conference, was that nobody except Trump knew the reason. „I grow tired of people in the media saying why President Trump did or didn’t do something,“ he said. A denial that rests on „I never heard him say it“ is not a finding. It is a press line. The people who briefed reporters described a personnel decision soaked in the files. The man who inherited the building said the files were finished.
The Man Who Ran the Review Became the Man Who Owns the Building
House Oversight Democrats did not need a leak to connect the dots. After Bondi sat for the committee, ranking member Robert Garcia said she had pushed the review onto Blanche and quoted her line that the acting attorney general „was managing the entire investigation.“ The Washington Examiner und CBS Nachrichten both recorded Chairman James Comer, on June 10, saying he wanted Blanche in during July and that the question was what documents, if any, were still being held back. Comer also noted the „big confirmation“ already on the calendar. A chairman who wants the nominee under oath about leftover pages is not treating the April denial as settled history.
The statute Trump signed in November 2025 set December 19, 2025, as the publication date. What the public received was a partial dump, then a victory lap. The earlier admission that less than 1 percent of the archive had been released is still the honest baseline for anyone reading the winter production. Blanche’s April claim that the department had „released all the files“ collided, on June 25, with a written finding from U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. In journalist Katie Phang’s lawsuit, Sullivan wrote that the attorney general had not answered the allegations and had „conceded that he is in violation of the Act.“ A confirmation built on a finished-files story walked into a judicial finding that the files were not finished.
Phang sued on April 27, civil action 26-1417 in Washington. She asked for a redaction log, a foreign-language review, and the removal of black bars she argued were protecting powerful names rather than victims. Sullivan’s injunction gave Blanche until July 2 to produce specific emails about a „torture video,“ names tied to a draft indictment and alleged co-conspirators, and the underlying FBI interview notes behind four FD-302 reports, or to show cause. One set of notes concerns a woman who has said that in the 1980s, when she was about 13, Epstein introduced her to Trump, who then assaulted her. Trump denies that account. The allegation is unproven in court. It is also one of the records a president’s former lawyer was ordered to stop hiding. Readers who want the docket in full can stay with Phang’s case against Blanche und die Fristdatei on this desk.
Fifty to Forty-Nine, With Two Republicans and an Empty Seat
The New York Times, Roll Call, CBS Nachrichten, und Forbes Alle verzeichneten die gleiche Arithmetik. Susan Collins aus Maine und Lisa Murkowski aus Alaska stimmten dagegen. Jeder Demokrat stimmte mit Nein. Mitch McConnell war nach einem Krankenhausaufenthalt immer noch vom Kapitol entfernt, so dass die Republikaner nur diese beiden Überläufer verschonen konnten. Bill Cassidy aus Louisiana lieferte das späte Ja, das 50 machte. Blanche schrieb, dass er geehrt wurde, der 88. Generalstaatsanwalt der Nation zu werden.
Collins said she believed Blanche was a capable lawyer and still could not support him, because the department had grown „increasingly political.“ Her list, as reported by The Daily Caller and the wire accounts, included a $1.8 billion „anti-weaponization“ fund, a tax-immunity arrangement for Trump and his family, opposition to limits on mailing abortion pills, and attempted indictments of Democratic Sens. Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis had balked at the fund, then cut a deal and voted to move the nomination. Murkowski’s statement was blunter about the archive. She said she was not convinced Blanche would „check the worst impulses of this administration,“ and she named the Epstein files among the decisions she would not bless. A Republican who cites the files on the way to a no vote is answering the April interview more clearly than the nominee did.
Cassidys Ja hat diesen Dissens nicht gelöscht. Es friert es ein. Ein amtierender Generalstaatsanwalt kann ohne namentlichen Aufruf ersetzt werden. Ein bestätigter lässt Überlebende, Reporter und staatliche Ermittler auf Briefköpfe starren, die früher zum Verteidigungstisch des Präsidenten gehörten. Banken haben bereits Schecks geschrieben, um Teile der zivilen Geschichte zu schließen, einschließlich der Bank of America settlement with survivors und die UBS financing tied to Ghislaine Maxwell’s New Hampshire hideoutDie gesetzliche Bibliothek ist keine Siedlung. Es ist eine Publikationspflicht. Der Senat behandelte die Pflicht als eine Kontroverse unter vielen und bestätigte den Mann, den Bondi bereits als Manager der Überprüfung beschrieben hatte.
The Denial Did Not Survive September
Am 16. September wies Sullivan Blanches Behauptung zurück, handschriftliche FBI-Interviewnotizen seien lediglich Duplikate von getippten FD-302s. Der Richter ordnete sowohl die redigierten als auch die nicht redigierten Notizen für die Bates-Nummern EFTA01245620, EFTA02858481, EFTA02858491 und EFTA02858495 an, die bis 11 Uhr zur privaten Überprüfung vorgelegt wurden. am 24. September. Er befahl auch der Abteilung, mit der Überprüfung fremdsprachiger Epstein-Aufzeichnungen zu beginnen und dem Gericht mitzuteilen, dass die Arbeit begonnen hatte. Ein Sprecher der Abteilung sagte Die Washington Sun that leadership was not „concerned“ about contempt warnings. On September 25, Phang reported that Blanche’s lawyer said the unredacted handwritten notes from four interviews with the woman who accused Trump had been turned over to the judge, along with backup for certain victim redactions. There was no clean public docket stamp announcing it. The notes are for the court, not for readers. Foreign-language production is a separate fight Blanche took to the D.C. Circuit.
Das ist der Abstand zwischen dem 2. April und dem 25. September. Der amtierende Generalstaatsanwalt sagte, die Akten seien vorbei und das Schießen habe nichts damit zu tun. Der bestätigte generalstaatsanwalt produziert immer noch aufzeichnungen, die ein richter privat verlangen musste, über vorwürfe, die den präsidenten nennen. Trump und Epstein zogen jahrelang durch die gleichen Zimmer in New York und Palm Beach. Trump selbst beschrieb einmal eine lange soziale Freundschaft, bevor er später einen Sturz behauptete. Eine Abteilung, die von seinem ehemaligen Verteidiger geleitet wird, ist kein neutraler Bibliothekar für diese Geschichte. Die AEGIS Alliance hat Bondis Florida-Rekord seit Jahren abgedeckt, einschließlich der 2017 file on her office and courtroom fraud allegations. The federal chapter is larger, and it did not close when she left.
A Title Is Not Compliance
Readers who want the rest of this beat can stay on The AEGIS Alliance Politik, Kriminalnachrichten, und Vereinigte Staaten News desks. August 8 changed the name on the door. It did not publish the redaction log, it did not translate the foreign-language tranche, and it did not put the FBI notes on the public site. Blanche’s April sentence, that the Epstein saga „should not be a part of anything going forward,“ is the sentence the confirmation was designed to protect. Sullivan’s September orders are the sentence the law still requires. The AEGIS Alliance will keep both of them visible until the public can read what the judge has already been allowed to see.
