{"id":166116,"date":"2026-10-26T13:45:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T21:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/26\/house-democrats-say-todd-blanche-steered-ghislaine-maxwell-away-from-a-trump-accuser\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T13:45:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T21:45:24","slug":"house-democrats-say-todd-blanche-steered-ghislaine-maxwell-away-from-a-trump-accuser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/26\/house-democrats-say-todd-blanche-steered-ghislaine-maxwell-away-from-a-trump-accuser\/","title":{"rendered":"House Democrats Say Todd Blanche Steered Ghislaine Maxwell Away From A Trump Accuser"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight days before Election Day, House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a 50-plus-page staff report whose title borrows from the birthday letter Donald Trump insists he never wrote, \u201c\u2018We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey\u2019: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ\u2019s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up.\u201d<\/a> The report, released Monday by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, details evidence involving 11 women. Five of them directly accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault in Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s company or presence, and two of the allegations involve 13-year-old girls. Democrats want an independent special counsel to investigate both Epstein\u2019s co-conspirators and the Justice Department\u2019s handling of the whole mess.<\/p>\n

Consider this the Democrats\u2019 October surprise, released with Election Day in sight. It may not cut through the MAGA haze (very little does), but at least someone\u2019s trying. The newest allegation comes from Beatrice Keul, a Swiss former pageant contestant. She says Trump raped her in a Plaza Hotel suite during his 1993 American Dream pageant, on the same day Epstein introduced himself to her as \u201cDon\u2019s best friend.\u201d That account rests on her interviews with committee staff, and she has previously described the encounter as an attempted rape. The White House says none of it is true.<\/p>\n

The cover-up section of the report is also damning. Start with Todd Blanche, Trump\u2019s former criminal defense lawyer and now Attorney General, who personally interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell in 2025. According to the report, Blanche steered Maxwell away \u201con at least three separate occasions\u201d from discussing \u201cJane.\u201d Jane is a survivor whose account in FBI files says Epstein introduced her to Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 with the line, \u201cThis is a good one, huh.\u201d At one point, Blanche told Maxwell, \u201cLet\u2019s not talk about individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats say that may amount to witness tampering and obstruction. Maxwell, you\u2019ll recall, was moved to a minimum-security camp in Texas roughly a week after that interview, a transfer Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is still waiting for Blanche to explain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then there are the documents. The report says an FBI agent\u2019s internal search for Trump and Epstein under \u201cexploitation of minors\u201d returned a case number tied to Epstein\u2019s 2007 federal investigation. A whistleblower told Democrats that documents linked to that case number have been withheld from Congress and the public. A still-redacted 2009 email from Epstein\u2019s lawyer says \u201cTrump specifically asked\u201d his own attorney to let Epstein\u2019s team know about Trump\u2019s interview with a lawyer for Epstein\u2019s victims. That same redacted 2009 material has Trump saying Epstein \u201cwas never asked to leave\u201d Mar-a-Lago. That\u2019s awkward, since \u201cI kicked him out\u201d has been the official story for years. Blanche\u2019s explanation for the redaction is that it\u2019s a privileged communication between counsel.<\/p>\n

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed, allows redactions to protect victims. It has no carve-out for things that make the president look bad, a distinction the DOJ has struggled with since jump. Blanche personally blocked the DEA from releasing an unredacted document<\/a> about a 2015 investigation into Epstein\u2019s associates. Then Katie Phang sued him<\/a>, and Judge Emmet Sullivan found Blanche had effectively conceded he was violating the law. Blanche answered with a brief that reads like a kid yelling \u201cthat\u2019s not fair,\u201d<\/a> and by September, Sullivan was warning him about contempt. New Mexico sued too<\/a>, because it can\u2019t get the files it needs for its own criminal investigation into Epstein\u2019s Zorro Ranch. So the \u201cstate and foreign prosecutors\u201d part of Raskin\u2019s demand isn\u2019t hypothetical. And last week brought reports that White House officials helped draft the July 2025 FBI\/DOJ memo that effectively shut down further Epstein investigations.<\/p>\n

Got that? The DOJ kept a 2009 email about the president under wraps, but it published survivors\u2019 identifying information. It withheld files tied to an \u201cexploitation of minors\u201d case number, but it somehow found room in the production for an Above the Law<\/em> newsletter written years after Epstein died<\/a> because the government is taking this very seriously.<\/p>\n

Raskin isn\u2019t mincing words:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s Justice Department appears to be covering up these crimes to protect the President,\u201d said Judiciary Ranking Member Jamie Raskin in a statement. \u201cThe women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein\u2019s co-conspirators and DOJ\u2019s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The report itself is doubtful the administration will take even that \u201cminimal step,\u201d and it\u2019s not hard to see why. Blanche has already told the Senate the DOJ won\u2019t prosecute anyone else connected to Epstein, and he once explained that \u201cit isn\u2019t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.\u201d Under the special counsel regulations, the decision to appoint one belongs to the Attorney General. <\/p>\n

So the call on whether to investigate the president\u2019s ties to Epstein belongs to the president\u2019s lawyer (sorry, former<\/em> lawyer<\/a>), I\u2019ll definitely be holding my breath for that one. <\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Todd Blanche\u2019s Top Priority Appears To Be Keeping Key Epstein Files From Seeing Light Of Day<\/a>
Todd Blanche Sued Over Epstein Files Cover Up<\/a>
The DOJ Has Betrayed Epstein Survivors \u2014 New Mexico Is Suing Over The Latest Issue<\/a>
Todd Blanche\u2019s Brief Has The Tone Of A Kid Yelling \u2018That\u2019s Not Fair\u2019<\/a>
Senator Whitehouse Is Still Waiting For Todd Blanche To Explain The Ghislaine Maxwell Prison Transfer<\/a>
Senator Whitehouse Would Like To Tell You Exactly What He Thinks Of Todd Blanche<\/a>
Paging Dr. Freud: Todd Blanche Calls Himself Trump\u2019s Lawyer At His Attorney General Confirmation Hearing<\/a>
Above The Law Is In The Epstein Files, Let Us Explain\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post House Democrats Say Todd Blanche Steered Ghislaine Maxwell Away From A Trump Accuser<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eight days before Election Day, House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a 50-plus-page staff report whose title borrows from the birthday letter Donald Trump insists he never wrote, \u201c\u2018We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey\u2019: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ\u2019s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up.\u201d<\/a> The report, released Monday by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, details evidence involving 11 women. Five of them directly accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault in Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s company or presence, and two of the allegations involve 13-year-old girls. Democrats want an independent special counsel to investigate both Epstein\u2019s co-conspirators and the Justice Department\u2019s handling of the whole mess.<\/p>\n

Consider this the Democrats\u2019 October surprise, released with Election Day in sight. It may not cut through the MAGA haze (very little does), but at least someone\u2019s trying. The newest allegation comes from Beatrice Keul, a Swiss former pageant contestant. She says Trump raped her in a Plaza Hotel suite during his 1993 American Dream pageant, on the same day Epstein introduced himself to her as \u201cDon\u2019s best friend.\u201d That account rests on her interviews with committee staff, and she has previously described the encounter as an attempted rape. The White House says none of it is true.<\/p>\n

The cover-up section of the report is also damning. Start with Todd Blanche, Trump\u2019s former criminal defense lawyer and now Attorney General, who personally interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell in 2025. According to the report, Blanche steered Maxwell away \u201con at least three separate occasions\u201d from discussing \u201cJane.\u201d Jane is a survivor whose account in FBI files says Epstein introduced her to Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 with the line, \u201cThis is a good one, huh.\u201d At one point, Blanche told Maxwell, \u201cLet\u2019s not talk about individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats say that may amount to witness tampering and obstruction. Maxwell, you\u2019ll recall, was moved to a minimum-security camp in Texas roughly a week after that interview, a transfer Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is still waiting for Blanche to explain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then there are the documents. The report says an FBI agent\u2019s internal search for Trump and Epstein under \u201cexploitation of minors\u201d returned a case number tied to Epstein\u2019s 2007 federal investigation. A whistleblower told Democrats that documents linked to that case number have been withheld from Congress and the public. A still-redacted 2009 email from Epstein\u2019s lawyer says \u201cTrump specifically asked\u201d his own attorney to let Epstein\u2019s team know about Trump\u2019s interview with a lawyer for Epstein\u2019s victims. That same redacted 2009 material has Trump saying Epstein \u201cwas never asked to leave\u201d Mar-a-Lago. That\u2019s awkward, since \u201cI kicked him out\u201d has been the official story for years. Blanche\u2019s explanation for the redaction is that it\u2019s a privileged communication between counsel.<\/p>\n

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed, allows redactions to protect victims. It has no carve-out for things that make the president look bad, a distinction the DOJ has struggled with since jump. Blanche personally blocked the DEA from releasing an unredacted document<\/a> about a 2015 investigation into Epstein\u2019s associates. Then Katie Phang sued him<\/a>, and Judge Emmet Sullivan found Blanche had effectively conceded he was violating the law. Blanche answered with a brief that reads like a kid yelling \u201cthat\u2019s not fair,\u201d<\/a> and by September, Sullivan was warning him about contempt. New Mexico sued too<\/a>, because it can\u2019t get the files it needs for its own criminal investigation into Epstein\u2019s Zorro Ranch. So the \u201cstate and foreign prosecutors\u201d part of Raskin\u2019s demand isn\u2019t hypothetical. And last week brought reports that White House officials helped draft the July 2025 FBI\/DOJ memo that effectively shut down further Epstein investigations.<\/p>\n

Got that? The DOJ kept a 2009 email about the president under wraps, but it published survivors\u2019 identifying information. It withheld files tied to an \u201cexploitation of minors\u201d case number, but it somehow found room in the production for an Above the Law<\/em> newsletter written years after Epstein died<\/a> because the government is taking this very seriously.<\/p>\n

Raskin isn\u2019t mincing words:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s Justice Department appears to be covering up these crimes to protect the President,\u201d said Judiciary Ranking Member Jamie Raskin in a statement. \u201cThe women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein\u2019s co-conspirators and DOJ\u2019s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The report itself is doubtful the administration will take even that \u201cminimal step,\u201d and it\u2019s not hard to see why. Blanche has already told the Senate the DOJ won\u2019t prosecute anyone else connected to Epstein, and he once explained that \u201cit isn\u2019t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.\u201d Under the special counsel regulations, the decision to appoint one belongs to the Attorney General. <\/p>\n

So the call on whether to investigate the president\u2019s ties to Epstein belongs to the president\u2019s lawyer (sorry, former<\/em> lawyer<\/a>), I\u2019ll definitely be holding my breath for that one. <\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Todd Blanche\u2019s Top Priority Appears To Be Keeping Key Epstein Files From Seeing Light Of Day<\/a>
Todd Blanche Sued Over Epstein Files Cover Up<\/a>
The DOJ Has Betrayed Epstein Survivors \u2014 New Mexico Is Suing Over The Latest Issue<\/a>
Todd Blanche\u2019s Brief Has The Tone Of A Kid Yelling \u2018That\u2019s Not Fair\u2019<\/a>
Senator Whitehouse Is Still Waiting For Todd Blanche To Explain The Ghislaine Maxwell Prison Transfer<\/a>
Senator Whitehouse Would Like To Tell You Exactly What He Thinks Of Todd Blanche<\/a>
Paging Dr. Freud: Todd Blanche Calls Himself Trump\u2019s Lawyer At His Attorney General Confirmation Hearing<\/a>
Above The Law Is In The Epstein Files, Let Us Explain\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post House Democrats Say Todd Blanche Steered Ghislaine Maxwell Away From A Trump Accuser<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight days before Election Day, House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a 50-plus-page staff report whose title borrows from the birthday letter Donald Trump insists he never wrote, \u201c\u2018We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey\u2019: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ\u2019s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up.\u201d The report, released […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":166088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}