WASHINGTON — Former career Department of Justice officials and a survivor of abuse by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sounded the alarm Wednesday on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s fitness to lead the Department of Justice, one day ahead of a scheduled committee vote to advance his nomination to the full Senate.
The narrow committee divide, razor-thin after the death of the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, could mean the vote will hinge on two Republican senators spurned by President Donald Trump, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas.
The former DOJ staffers and Epstein survivor testified on Capitol Hill, at a forum held by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats.
They said Blanche’s relationship with Trump and his “mind-boggling” involvement in the president’s recent settlement with the IRS, as well as the botched release of the Epstein files, disqualifies him from becoming the nation’s top enforcer of the law.
“I don’t know what happened, but he is certainly not the person that I once worked with,” said Perry Carbone, a former federal prosecutor who worked alongside Blanche in the Southern District of New York, where Blanche served from 2006 to 2014.
Blanche eventually left the Justice Department to work in private law. He represented Trump as his personal defense attorney in three criminal cases in 2023 and 2024. Trump, with the approval of Senate Republicans, installed Blanche as deputy attorney general in March 2025.
Trump announced Blanche as his pick for attorney general in early June, just over two months after former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure.
The Department of Justice did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on the hearing.
IRS deal, Minnesota probe
Carbone listed a number of reasons he believes should preclude Blanche from leading the department, including “the extraordinary IRS settlement,” the prosecution of the president’s political adversaries “on evidence that raises serious doubt about the bona fides of those cases” and efforts to “halt or interfere” with the Minnesota state investigation into the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents.
Carbone also highlighted Blanche’s “declaration of war on our judges” and the interview and relocation of Epstein co-conspirator and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “for what appear to be political reasons.”
“We repeat a mantra daily so that no one forgets it: ‘We do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons.’ It’s not my place to say whether the nominee has forgotten that credo. That judgment belongs to the committee. I can only tell you what I’ve observed and why it troubles someone who spent a career trying to live by that credo,” Carbone said.
He added that Blanche’s firing of department officials who investigated Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, “undermines” public confidence.
“Even the appearance of retaliation for doing one’s job sends a chilling message throughout the department,” Carbone added.
Firings, resignations
Peter Carr, a longtime department spokesperson fired by Blanche in April 2025, estimated the department has lost 19,000 employees, including 30% of its attorneys and 10% of its FBI special agents.
“That includes those who were fired, but also those who’ve been pushed out or chose to leave,” said Carr, who worked as a spokesperson for special counsel Jack Smith’s office during the Biden administration. He first joined the DOJ in 2007 under President George W. Bush.
Elizabeth Stein, an Epstein abuse survivor, expressed anger that victims’ names and images were disclosed when the DOJ published the Epstein files online, as legally mandated after Congress nearly unanimously passed legislation to force the release.
“When the Epstein files were released earlier this year, my own name was left unredacted in a sentence that read in part, ‘Stein was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell in the mid-90s.’ It doesn’t get much clearer than that,” said Stein, now a human trafficking specialist and survivor advocate for World Without Exploitation.
“The name of the school I attended, where I worked, and portions of my home address were also publicly disclosed. The very institution Congress charged with protecting survivors instead exposed us.”
‘Typical’ terms
Carbone also spoke at length about Blanche’s involvement in Trump’s settlement with the IRS.
In exchange for Trump and his family dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the 2019 leak of tax returns, the DOJ ordered the establishment of a settlement fund in the amount of nearly $1.8 billion.
Blanche defended the settlement terms as “typical” during his confirmation hearing with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 15.
“If this is not standard language, can you make that point for us? I think it’s really important to draw that out,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., asked Carbone.
The former federal prosecutor, whose career spanned 30 years, said under normal circumstances the IRS would tailor language only specifically to the matter of litigation, and possibly calculate a settlement sum.
“That’s not what this is. Some of this language is mind-boggling, and I have it here in front of me … One of the subcategories is relating to ‘lawfare and/or weaponization.’ What does that mean?” Carbone said.
Booker said the “totality of the evidence is staggering” against Blanche’s nomination.
“I want to let you all know very clearly and unequivocally that if there were just some of these issues, they would be enough to be disqualifying. … This man has had an impact already in his deputy role and now in his acting role,” Booker said at the close of the hearing.
Dramatic vote ahead
Whether Blanche’s nomination advances from the Senate Judiciary Committee depends on whether every Republican on the panel, split 11-10, supports him.
Those campaigning against Blanche’s confirmation are targeting two members — Tillis, who is retiring at the end of his term, and Cornyn.
Trump subjected Tillis to intense criticism for opposing the Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025 and said he would find candidates to oppose Tillis in his primary. Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent earlier this year.
Just over two dozen survivors affected by abuse by Epstein and Maxwell sent a letter Tuesday to Tillis and Cornyn.
“We understand that both of you remain open to opposing his nomination, and we are asking you to stand with survivors of human trafficking and sexual assault at this critical moment,” the survivors wrote.
“Under Todd Blanche’s leadership, the Justice Department released survivors’ names, identifying information and images while the names of alleged abusers and enablers remained hidden. More than a thousand women and girls were abused, yet no one beyond Epstein and Maxwell has been prosecuted.”
The women wrote that Blanche met with them following his confirmation hearing, but that it amounted to “an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting.”
“Senator Tillis, when you urged Todd Blanche to meet with survivors, we believed you expected a serious and meaningful conversation. What occurred instead was a box-checking exercise arranged only after his confirmation was put at risk,” they wrote.
Common Cause North Carolina, a state arm of the national progressive advocacy group, urged Tillis in early July to vote against Blanche, who the group’s director, Brooks Fuller, said “has shown the only person he is interested in protecting and defending is President Donald Trump.”
The advocacy organization joined with other groups, including North Carolina for the People and The Justice Project, to deliver messages to Tillis’ office on July 6, according to organizers.
Tillis’ office did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a response. Cornyn’s office said it did not have a comment at this time.
This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.
