The Case Against Todd Blanche
Based on his record, his confirmation for Attorney General would be a disaster for survivors.
At Fractured, I try to keep my posts apolitical for a reason. Sexual assault is not a Republican or Democrat issue. It affects victims of all political stripes. And anyone of any party can stand in the way of progress for survivors. Apathy and misogyny are not exclusive to one side of the aisle.
But I’m troubled by the scale of obstruction coming from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
A recap of what’s happened: he’s currently going through the Senate confirmation process to become the permanent US attorney general. As Acting Attorney General, he oversaw the release of Epstein documents that exposed some survivors’ identities. He needs to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has a thin Republican majority, to move on to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote. Because of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s recent death, Republicans can now only afford to lose one committee vote.
His confirmation hinges on two holdouts—Sens. Tillis and Cornyn. If confirmed, he will become the permanent head of the Department of Justice—the same Department of Justice that has sat on the investigation into the N.Y.P.D.’s Special Victims Division for the last four years.
Based on his record, his confirmation would be a disaster for survivors.
The Acting Attorney General who wasn’t there
In a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was pressed to apologize to Epstein survivors for the exposure of their information. Tellingly, he gave this defensive apology: “Yes, I am sorry that in about 1% of the documents, mistakes were made.”
Never mind that those “mistakes” affected real human beings whose names, contact information, and images, including in some cases nude photos, were exposed by the federal government. Some survivors who had not been public about their experience before found themselves outed in the unredacted files.
He also defended not previously meeting with survivors, saying he “could” meet them. One survivor, Dani Bensky, was not impressed, saying “The acting attorney general has never attempted to listen to us, the crime victims. He simply ignored us for the last eight months and has been radio silent, which has been deafening.”
He did instead find the time to meet with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell for nine hours, after which she was transferred to a minimum security prison.
In fact, it wasn’t until Sen. Thom Tillis, who as of this writing, has not publicly committed to voting to confirm Blanche, pressed him to meet with survivors as a condition of his potential “yes” vote, that he did so.
The meeting did not go well. “He danced around his wording, repeatedly interrupted us and could not commit to anything that would demonstrate good faith or begin to restore trust,” Bensky stated afterward.
It was not just Bensky who felt this way, either. A group of survivors went on to submit an open letter to Sens. Cornyn and Tillis urging them to oppose Blanche’s confirmation.
Survivors deserve better
All of these facts in combination paints the picture of an Attorney General who doesn’t stand for survivors.
Government records indicate that Jeffrey Epstein abused and victimized more than 1,000 to 1,200 individuals. But only Epstein and Maxwell were ever charged. Todd Blanche has responded to the question of why with a shrug of an answer.
“..there’s something that they want that I don’t think I can give them, which is some form of justice. And I want to be able to give justice in the form of prosecutions, but and maybe we could do a prosecution at some point. I don’t know,” he said of survivors.
He doesn’t know. That’s his answer. It’s why he shouldn’t be Attorney General.
Survivors deserve an attorney general who takes federal investigations into sexual assault and human trafficking seriously, and the handling of survivors’ identities carefully. As head of the DOJ, he should champion justice for survivors instead of dismissing them and meeting instead with perpetrators like Maxwell. We need a DOJ that will send a message that sex crimes and poor police handling of these cases will not be tolerated by the US government.
Until then, we should oppose Todd Blanche’s confirmation.
The next committee hearing to move Todd Blanche’s confirmation along is this week. If you’d like to help, contact Sens. Tillis and Cornyn’s office and ask them to vote no on Todd Blanche’s confirmation. A vote for him is a vote against survivors.
Sen. Tillis
(202) 224-6342
Sen. Cornyn
(202) 224-2934
Leslie, thank you for sharing this thoughtful piece.
One thing that really struck me is that trust is built—or broken—long before a case ever reaches a courtroom. Protecting survivors' identities, listening before defending, communicating with transparency, and demonstrating through actions that survivors matter shouldn't be political issues. They should be the baseline for any institution entrusted with justice.
At the same time, I hope we continue to invest just as much energy in preventing harm before it happens. We need systems that not only respond better after an assault, but help reduce the number of people who ever become survivors in the first place. Accountability and prevention aren't competing priorities—they're both essential.
That “apology” is so hideous. Absolutely atrocious behavior all around. Sickening.