[0:00]an unimaginable loss. Ms. Boss's daughter, Megan, was discovered in a dumpster belonging
[0:09]to an illegal immigrant. The man was arrested, but within 24 hours he walked free. The sanctuary
[0:18]city and soft on crime policies of her home state failed to protect her daughter or
[0:25]deliver justice to the families. Ms. Boss had no recourse until President Trump learned of the
[0:33]case and ensured that the man was detained by ICE. Sadly, Ms. Boss knows firsthand how important
[0:43]it is to have Justice Department that listens to victims, pursues justice, and works to
[0:51]protect communities. Ms. Boss, I'm very sorry for your loss. I'm grateful for your testimony today.
[1:00]We also have John Edler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association
[1:08]Foundation. He was a first responder at ground zero on 9-11 and has decades of experience in
[1:18]law enforcement. For years, he served as the chief firearms and tactical training instructor
[1:25]of the Southern District of New York. While at that position, Mr. Edler met and observed Mr.
[1:34]Blanche's diligent work firsthand. Mr. Edler previously served as director of the
[1:42]Bureau of Justice Assistance. Based on that experience and his decades in law enforcement,
[1:48]Mr. Edler now advocates for officers in the field. I look forward to learning his experience
[1:59]and perspective on Mr. Blanche's efforts to support law enforcement. And now, Senator Durbin,
[2:08]would you please introduce your guest? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say at the outset,
[2:12]I'm at your request. I'm trying to accommodate the attendance issue, which we both struggle with
[2:19]as U.S. Chairman and me as ranking member. And one of my witnesses, minority witnesses,
[2:25]has not arrived yet. She was told we'd be a little bit later, but we would start that. So
[2:29]I'm going to introduce her, and when she arrives, she'll take to the table and be sworn
[2:34]in by you. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. The first minority witness is Dani Bensky.
[2:38]I met her yesterday. Miss Bensky is a choreographer and dance educator. She's
[2:45]also a survivor of abuse by convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, to whom she was
[2:50]trafficked when she was 17 years old. Miss Bensky will tell us when she comes how,
[2:57]due to the carelessness of the Justice Department, graphic details of her abuse,
[3:03]as well as her identity, were released many times, despite her efforts to redact her
[3:10]information. She says that she, quote, won't stop fighting until the world was safer.
[3:16]Thank her for her courage, and I hope she arrives soon because of the change in plans.
[3:21]We've had some confusion. My second witness, second minority witness, is Elizabeth
[3:27]Oyer. Thank you for being here. She was the Justice Department pardon attorney
[3:32]until March 2025. She oversaw the pardon office, now run by the failed nominee
[3:38]and mega extremist Ed Martin. Prior to service in the Justice Department,
[3:43]Miss Oyer was an assistant federal public defender in Maryland and a litigation partner
[3:48]at Mayor Brown. She's a graduate of Harvard Law School and the illustrious Georgetown
[3:54]University. She will tell us our former office has devolved into a pay to play operation
[4:02]with mega donors jumping ahead, legitimate pardon candidates, often without proper vetting,
[4:10]the height of corruption. How do we know this? Miss Oyer was fired by Mr. Blanch just days
[4:16]after he took office for refusing to restore gun ownership rights to one of the president's
[4:21]personal friends, convicted domestic abuser and actor Mel Gibson. I yield, Mr. Chairman.
[4:28]Yeah. Now back to the work of our committee. We have one more member to get here. In the
[4:34]meantime, I want to enter into the record nine letters supporting Mr. Blanch's nomination from
[4:41]major law enforcement organizations. Combined, these organizations represent hundreds of thousands
[4:49]of law enforcement officers from around our country who work every day to uphold the rule
[4:56]of law. The letters all praise Mr. Blanch's qualifications to serve as attorney general
[5:03]and his collaboration with law enforcement Americans to keep everybody safe. One letter
[5:12]states this, so I quote, we believe Mr. Blanch's leadership will help ensure that the Department
[5:21]of Justice remains focused on public safety, the rule of law and providing unwavering support
[5:30]for law enforcement professionals who risk their lives daily to protect our families
[5:37]and communities and to quote, without objection, these will be entered in the record.
[5:45]Then also I want to introduce into the record
[5:50]a letter supporting Mr. Blanch's nomination from 23 state attorneys general.
[5:58]The letter praises the Justice Department's success under Mr. Blanch's leadership
[6:04]in combating violent crime, enforcing our immigration laws, ending race-based discrimination,
[6:13]prosecuting criminal enterprises and rooting out fraud against taxpayers. The letter goes on to
[6:21]state quote, at a time when Americans expect their government to protect communities from
[6:28]violent crime, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism and organized criminal
[6:35]activity, Todd Blanch has shown the ability to deliver real results. His record reflects
[6:43]a commitment to public safety, vigorous enforcement of federal law and effective stewardship
[6:50]of the Department of Justice and to quote, without objection, those letters will be entered
[6:56]into the record. Would you like to make your speeches on judges now?
[7:03]I only have one or two.
[7:09]Okay, we're still waiting on one senator?
[7:12]Yeah.
[7:12]Okay, well this is a little out of sequence but I'm trying to cooperate on a bipartisan basis,
[7:19]report that. Say a word about Daniel Treanor, nominated to be the U.S. Court of Appeals for
[7:24]the Eighth Circuit. Prior to his confirmation for district court justice, Judge Treanor
[7:30]showed his true colors when it came to MAGA issues. After he was concerned,
[7:35]after he was confirmed, he had a chance to show whether he would be a neutral
[7:39]arbiter on the bench. Unfortunately, he's not demonstrated that. As one example, Judge
[7:45]Treanor has ruled in favor of the Trump administration in all 28 cases on his docket,
[7:52]involving challenges from immigrants who have been detained by ICE under the administration's
[7:57]illegal mandatory detention policy. That includes seven habeas corpus petitions,
[8:03]Treanor volunteered to preside over in the District of Minnesota following Operation
[8:09]Metro Surge. Judge Treanor is an outlier. Of the more than 17,000 cases in which federal
[8:16]district judges have ruled on ICE's mandatory detention policy, at least 15,000 were rulings
[8:23]against the Trump administration, including the vast majority of rulings by Trump-appointed judges.
[8:30]Yet Judge Treanor's partisanship was apparent when he served as a contributing author and
[8:35]signatory of a May 2024 letter from federal judges to the president of Columbia University.
[8:42]The signatories vowed, not the judges, vowed not to hire anyone who attended Columbia University
[8:49]beginning that year. But Treanor denied a recusal motion in a case brought by Columbia Law
[8:55]School Initiative for a Just Society, implausibly claiming he wasn't biased against Columbia
[9:01]University, just said he wouldn't hire anybody, went to school there. While he was comfortable
[9:05]taking a position on this controversial political question, Judge Treanor refused to
[9:10]answer questions at the hearing as to who won the 2020 election. For the record,
[9:16]Joe Biden did by seven million votes. It's very clear that Judge Treanor seeks to remain
[9:21]in good graces of the president at the cost of his own independence. I urge my colleagues
[9:26]to oppose him. I'd like to introduce into the record a letter supporting Mr. Blanche's
[9:36]nomination. This letter is from the American Center for Law and Justice. The letter states,
[9:44]Mr. Blanche has demonstrated the experience, judgment, and leadership necessary to guide
[9:50]the Department of Justice at a time when the faithful administration of our laws is a paramount
[9:56]importance. His service as deputy attorney general and most recently acting attorney general
[10:03]together with his distinguished career as both a federal prosecutor and defense attorney
[10:10]has given him a broad understanding of the department's responsibility and the
[10:16]constitutional principles that must guide him in his work. Without objection,
[10:21]this will be entered in the record. Now we'll have 77 former Department of Justice officials
[10:33]writing a letter in support of Blanche, so I'll enter this in the record. I want to quote
[10:40]from this letter. Todd Blanche understands that the department's mission
[10:48]is to deliver justice, not to serve political interest in entrenched bureaucracies.
[10:55]He has shown the courage and institutional knowledge to restore the focus on public
[11:01]safety, law enforcement support, and the rule of law. His career path from paralegal
[11:09]to prosecutor to second highest position in the department gives him a perspective
[11:16]few others possess. He knows what works because he has lived it at every level.
[11:24]So without objection, the department or the letter from 77 former DOJ officials
[11:34]will be inserted. We have a letter from the First Liberty Institute,
[11:48]the nation's largest legal organization dedicated solely to defending religious
[11:54]liberty. The letter states, quote, every attorney general faces difficult decisions
[12:03]that will inevitably generate disagreement. The proper question before the Senate is not whether
[12:10]members agree with every future judgment, but whether the nominee possesses the character,
[12:18]experience legal ability, and commitment to constitutional government necessary to faithfully
[12:25]discharge the office. Mr. Blanche's career demonstrates those qualities. Without objection,
[12:34]that will be entered into the record. Is he here? Okay. We now turn to the nomination.
[13:29]Okay. Well, I have one other letter to enter into the record by Jacob Tytelbaum. He praised
[13:38]Mr. Blanche's legal acumen and character, stating, and I quote, on more than one occasion
[13:50]I witnessed Mr. Blanche's continue to provide first race representation after learning that a
[13:59]client was facing severe financial hardship, often taking on cases on a pro bono or substantially
[14:08]reduced fee basis. It was evident that to him, practicing law was not merely a profession.
[14:16]It was a calling rooted in fairness, dignity, and compassion. These are precisely the qualities
[14:25]that I believe our nation needs in its next attorney general. Firmness to the pursuit of
[14:32]justice, joined with mercy and respect for every person who enters the law, end of quote.
[14:40]Okay. We can go now. Okay. We'll now turn to the nomination of Daniel Trainor
[14:47]to be circuit judge, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. Clerk will call the roll.
[15:12]No. No. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy.
[15:26]No by proxy. No by proxy. Aye. The nomination will be favorably
[15:39]reported. Now we go to Angela Monero, Judge, U.S. District Court, Southern District, Texas.
[15:50]Clerk will call the roll. Aye. Aye. No. No. No by proxy.
[16:14]No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy.
[16:26]Aye. The nomination will be reported.
[16:34]Now we have Castine Mitchell, Judge, District Court, Northern District, Texas. Clerk will call
[16:42]the roll. Aye. Aye. No. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy.
[17:14]Aye. Mitchell will be reported to the Senate floor.
[17:29]Now we have the nomination of Michael Martin, District Court, Eastern District of
[17:37]Michigan. Clerk will call the roll. Aye. Aye. No by proxy. No by proxy.
[18:05]No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. Aye. The nomination will be favorably
[18:29]reported. Now the last one is Antonio Pozo, Eastern District, Pennsylvania. Clerk will call
[18:37]the roll. Aye. Aye. No. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy. No by proxy.
[19:14]No by proxy. No by proxy. Aye. The nomination favorably voted on will be reported.
[19:33]We will, this ends our business meeting. Now I call the hearing to order. I would like to have
[19:53]the witnesses, would you please stand because we swear each in at every meeting.
[20:02]Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give before this committee will be the truth,
[20:13]the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do. They all answered
[20:20]affirmative. Okay, so welcome back Senator Ashcroft. Will you please begin your testimony
[20:44]and then we'll go right down the list of people the way you're seated there. Well thank
[20:51]you Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Durbin. I'm grateful to you and please allow me just
[20:58]a moment to extend my condolences to the committee, the friends and colleagues of Senator
[21:04]Lindsey Graham. He had a vivid history of bringing out the best in people he worked with
[21:10]on both sides of the aisle and we enjoyed his friendship and I take this moment
[21:15]to say my condolences and my sympathy also to Jennifer Boss whose daughter was brutally murdered.
[21:27]Allow me to thank you for your serious consideration and attention to the constitutional
[21:32]responsibility of confirming high ranking executive branch officials. It's an honor for
[21:38]me to participate with you today by my appearance, testifying and sharing my profound
[21:45]support for the nomination of the honorable Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States
[21:51]is something for which I am deeply grateful. Justice is best served in the United States through
[21:57]a commitment to uphold the Constitution and laws of this country. Integrity is an
[22:04]indispensable imperative for the rule of law. The rule of law is the best friend of
[22:10]constitutionally guarded liberty. For the highest quality administration of justice,
[22:16]law enforcement must never be diluted nor contaminated by personal bias or political
[22:22]preferences. Todd Blanche's record of upholding the Constitution and enforcing the law recommends
[22:28]him supremely to serve America as the 88th Attorney General of these United States.
[22:36]I know of no person, no person of a higher commitment to integrity. He has spoken the
[22:41]unvarnished truth to those he works for and to those he works with. Todd's career stands as
[22:48]an outstanding record of public service. He is a consistently well-prepared, tough but fair
[22:55]prosecutor fundamentally focused on the Constitution. He understands that he has a profound
[23:01]responsibility in the Justice Department to seek justice, not merely to prosecute.
[23:08]25 years ago during my opportunity to serve as Attorney General, Todd worked
[23:15]as an individual in the Justice Department and in his law school years Todd worked
[23:23]with the Justice Department and in that respect upon graduation from law school he clerked for
[23:30]several judges, two of whom are now serving on the respected nationally focused Second
[23:36]Circuit Court of Appeals. So he had an understanding of the law from both the
[23:40]prosecutorial side and the side of the bench. Following his clerkships, Todd became an Assistant
[23:48]United States Attorney as the U.S. Attorney Office for South Southern District of New York,
[23:55]a premier prosecutorial office of the United States. He spent roughly two years as the
[24:01]Co-Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit, supervising there nearly two dozen prosecutors.
[24:07]Then served as the Co-Chief of the Office's White Plains Division, where he presided over
[24:14]a wide span of work, public corruption, securities and bank and wire fraud, federal
[24:20]programs fraud, Medicare fraud, RICO and violent crime. Today as Deputy Attorney
[24:27]General and Acting Attorney General Todd energizes the roughly 115,000 employees
[24:34]from across Maine Justice, the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service,
[24:40]ATF and 93 U.S. Attorney's Offices that span the United States. He's conducted the
[24:48]Department's daily operations at full scale, demonstrating his readiness to manage the office
[24:54]in his own right. Todd therefore brings to the Department of Justice a relevant reservoir
[25:01]of experience coupled with sound judgment on an array of different issues. They're all related
[25:08]to law enforcement and the administration of justice. He understands that the rule of law
[25:14]exists to secure this and safeguard the God-given rights of liberty and freedom in America.
[25:22]In professional moments, both private and public, I have seen Todd's thoughtful, decisive,
[25:28]yet humble leadership. He's a careful and willing listener skilled at welcoming diverse
[25:34]viewpoints. He is adept at synthesizing and harmonizing different voices in complex
[25:40]situations. He is comfortable in being held to account and he will require those in the
[25:47]Department to be similarly accessible and accountable. Todd Blanche's record reflects
[25:54]a commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution. Our 250th anniversary properly
[26:00]reminds us that liberty is the core value of America. In fact, it's the core value of
[26:06]human existence. To safeguard this core cultural value, America needs an attorney general exclusively
[26:14]devoted to the rule of law and who unfailingly will honor his oaths of the Constitution.
[26:23]Todd Blanche is the right person for that responsibility.
[26:27]Mr. Chairman and committee members, thank you for what I consider to be a privilege
[26:32]to appear before this committee and communicate to you my unreserved endorsement of Todd Blanche
[26:38]for Attorney General of the United States and I thank you for this opportunity.
[26:43]Thank you. Mr. Ashcroft, now Ms. Bensky.
[26:50]First, I'd like to thank you and the committee.
[26:52]Microphone.
[26:54]Push the red button.
[26:55]There we go. Thank you. First, I'd like to thank you all and thank you to the
[27:00]committee for hearing survivor voices. I'd like to remind you of who you're hearing from today.
[27:06]At this time, can my survivor sisters and family please rise?
[27:13]We may look like grown adults when you see us now, but we were children.
[27:18]Young girls at the time of our abuse. These are the photos of when our innocence,
[27:22]dreams, and lives were stolen. Please take these faces in as you think of us as your
[27:28]own family. Daughters, nieces, sisters. Now look at our faces and remember the women and families
[27:35]of who the DOJ re-victimized. You guys can sit. Thank you so much.
[27:42]I'm a teacher. In my school, if a student released a nude photo depicting a peer's
[27:47]sexual assault and abuse, they would almost certainly face expulsion. And yet,
[27:52]this is what our Department of Justice did to crime victims. Today, Todd Blanche has been
[28:00]at the helm of the release of nude images of survivors, the outing of Jane Doe's,
[28:05]and the exposure of more than 100 victims identifying information in documents describing
[28:12]horrific acts of abuse, including my own. Instead of treating this release as its own
[28:18]violation and holding the man who led it accountable, you have a decision on whether
[28:25]you place him in the highest law enforcement position in this country. In December,
[28:33]before the document release, our attorneys submitted 350 victims' names to the Department
[28:38]of Justice as victims' names to be redacted prior to the release. In that first release,
[28:45]I found my name in two places. In that next release in January, my name appeared again,
[28:49]but this time the reductions were so far worse. The files displayed not only my name,
[28:55]but my phone number, my former addresses, where I worked, and other identifying information.
[29:01]When my name appeared in the third file release, it became difficult to believe that this was
[29:06]not intentional. Despite my lawyer repeatedly contacting the DOJ, seeking protection,
[29:13]my information continued to be exposed. And it's not just my name, it's the identifying
[29:20]information these documents contain disturbing yet incomplete accounts of my abuse. They were
[29:25]available not only for the entire world to see, but my child, my students, my friends,
[29:31]my employers, my colleagues, and my family. It was humiliating. Worse, my FBI 302 exposed
[29:39]Jane Doe, who had fought for decades to conceal her identity. It's been absolutely devastating.
[29:48]Outing survivors causes real and irrevocable harm. While coping with our emotional distress
[29:54]and psychological trauma, we also have lost our privacy and confidentiality,
[30:00]suffered reputational harm, lost jobs, and now fear for our personal safety. We are not
[30:08]activists. We are crime victims. For us, this has never been about politics.
[30:15]It has been about getting justice for the crimes committed against us.
[30:20]And the redactions are not the only problem with Todd Blanche's nomination. Todd Blanche has never
[30:25]attempted to listen to us, the crime victims. Survivors in this room repeatedly asked to meet
[30:31]with Todd Blanche through multiple channels. He never responded. Yesterday, he said he would
[30:36]meet with us, with our attorneys, if they were present. But let's be clear, that was the first
[30:41]time that that was ever communicated to us before yesterday. He simply ignored us for the
[30:47]last eight months. He's been radio silent and the silence was deafening. Crime victims deserve
[30:55]better from the nation's highest level of law enforcement officials. We deserve to be heard
[31:01]directly, not dismissed and ignored. There are numerous investigative leads that must be followed
[31:07]despite Mr. Blanche's claim that there are none. Epstein and Maxwell did not abuse women
[31:14]and children alone. They did not build their operation alone. Others enabled these crimes,
[31:20]exploited victims, and avoided accountability for decades. You do not have to take my word
[31:27]for it. Several weeks ago, after examining the evidence, Chairman James Comer directed Todd Blanche
[31:33]to open investigations into two men connected to Epstein. The Epstein files are not merely a
[31:39]collection of embarrassing names and politically damaging associations. They are records connected
[31:46]to the sexual exploitation and trafficking of girls and young women. They contain information
[31:54]about how Epstein's network worked, who assisted him, and whether additional crimes can still be
[32:00]investigated. The Department of Justice should pursue every credible lead, not just tirelessly,
[32:07]tirelessly, work tirelessly, not just to shut down the investigations.
[32:13]The survivors in this room know there are investigative leads because they are our stories.
[32:19]Mr. Blanche knows it too, yet he has chosen not to pursue them. Mr. Blanche's actions have
[32:25]have destroyed Survivor's Trust. According to public reporting, Mr. Blanche spent approximately
[32:31]nine hours meeting with Gillen Maxwell. He did not even spend nine minutes meeting with
[32:37]the survivor. Afterward, Maxwell was transferred to what many have described as a summer camp
[32:43]prison. We learned all of this through the news. Imagine what that feels like as a survivor to sit
[32:50]there if you were exploited by Gillen Maxwell and you're hearing this for the first time
[32:54]with no explanation, no outreach, and no transparency from your community. And to add
[33:00]insult to injury, the information that Todd Blanche gathered in the White House Situation
[33:04]Room last summer to curb the political fallout from the Epstein files was absolutely abhorrent.
[33:11]Instead of following investigative leads, our government treated and continued to treat this
[33:16]as a political crisis that needs to be managed. In our nation, everyone deserves equal protection
[33:22]under the law. Todd Blanche has been unwilling to protect Epstein survivors' personal information
[33:30]and he has been resistant to investigate the people who helped Epstein and Maxwell commit
[33:35]those crimes. We need an attorney general committed to ensuring that everyone who
[33:40]facilitated Epstein's crimes is held accountable. Please, I implore you, please
[33:48]think carefully and think about the girls in these photos. Thank you.
[33:52]Thank you, Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Durbin and members of the committee.
[34:20]My name is Jennifer Boss. I live in Antioch, Illinois. I'm the mother of an angel named
[34:25]Megan Boss, and I'm here because my daughter's tragic and gruesome death has exposed catastrophic
[34:31]failures in immigration enforcement and drug trafficking policies. The investigation into
[34:37]her death continues, but one truth is painfully clear. Dangerous gaps in our system allowed an
[34:43]illegal alien to exploit our laws, and my daughter paid the ultimate price.
[34:49]Losing Megan and then being forced to navigate multiple broken systems while drowning in grief
[34:57]taught me that policies carrying life or death consequences cannot remain political talking
[35:02]points. That's why I've tried, despite the most intense heartache anyone can ever experience,
[35:11]to speak locally and nationally about the four crises that compounded our tragedy.
[35:17]Illegal immigration, sanctuary policies, the fentanyl crisis, and cashless bail.
[35:24]I'm so grateful that the whole of this administration, with Todd Blanch leading the
[35:29]DOJ, has prioritized all four of these issues. I'm asking the committee not to wait until
[35:36]another mother is sitting where I am. Confirmed, Todd Blanch, he is a leader who will uphold
[35:42]the law, honor victims, confront dangerous criminal organizations, and fight to give
[35:48]other American families the safety and lasting protection that came too late for mine.
[35:58]I couldn't save my daughter, but Todd Blanch as attorney general, he might save yours,
[36:04]because next time it could be your child, it could be your family, it could be you.
[36:12]This can happen to anyone. We must have leaders that are willing to act before the next life is
[36:19]taken. Leaders that are willing to confront the failures instead of explaining them away.
[36:25]Leaders like Todd Blanch. Megan was my firstborn. She was a mom and a sister and an aunt,
[36:34]loyal friend. She was bubbly and funny. She loved to be silly. Sorry. She was extraordinarily
[36:51]creative, and she was blessed with the spirit that just lit up the room. In February of 2025,
[37:00]Megan disappeared. For 51 days, our family lived in the most unbearable agony.
[37:07]And day after day, I did everything I could think of to search for her.
[37:14]Instead of bringing Megan home, our search ended with the most unbearable truth a mother
[37:18]could ever be forced to face. We learned that Megan's life had been cut short,
[37:37]and her body was concealed, stuffed upside down in a garbage can, filled with bleach
[37:49]by an illegal alien that had no right to be here. Again, she was stuffed upside down
[37:58]in a garbage can for 51 days, soaking in bleach for seven weeks. This man walked past that
[38:15]garbage can on his way to the bakery he worked at every day under a fake name.
[38:22]And during those weeks, I couldn't breathe or eat or sleep.
[38:29]We searched his neighborhood. We knocked on his door. We left Megan flyers with Megan's
[38:39]face on every surface we could find. And then I learned she was only a driveway
[38:48]distance away from us the whole time. Not only was she killed, her dignity was stolen in death.
[39:08]Had Megan not been identified by the tattoos that she loved so dearly,
[39:14]even the beautiful image of my daughter that I hold in my heart, my head,
[39:19]it would have been replaced forever by the unbearable image of what had been done to her.
[39:27]Megan's daughter, she was only five years old when this happened.
[39:33]Her life with Megan and her right to know and make memories with her mom,
[39:38]it was stolen. This is Megan's bracelet. It's a charm bracelet. We started when she was five,
[39:51]and it has every memory on it from growing up.
[39:55]Every milestone, every place that we visit, anything that was important to her,
[40:01]it's here. This is her story. And these are the stories that she should be telling her daughter.
[40:11]I have to hope I can remember them all. There's so many. My husband and I, we won't be retiring
[40:25]like we imagined, of course, because we have to pray that we live long enough to raise her
[40:31]little girl into adulthood. And this is because our laws that we already have
[40:39]aren't enforced. This is why victims don't care about partisan victories. We care whether
[40:48]the dangerous criminals and drug traffickers and cartels are stopped before another loved one is
[40:54]buried and another family's life is shattered. Right now, governors and local officials enact
[41:05]sanctuary protections, cashless bail policies, and identification laws that undermine federal
[41:11]enforcement and create dangerous public safety loopholes. A criminal that's released under
[41:19]a reckless local policy does not remain inside that city or state. He can cross into yours.
[41:28]Megan's perpetrator was released the day after he was arrested.
[41:32]Do you want him as your neighbor? Angel families have told me
[41:41]how they've been entirely abandoned and ignored by the government.
[41:46]Our children and our families were politically inconvenient. Some of these Angel families have
[41:51]been trying, asking for someone to listen to the stories and learn from what's happened to us
[41:59]for more than 25 years. In this very room, the last Angel mom that sat here
[42:13]was asked how come she was here and why did they have to sit through another hearing.
[42:24]That's beginning to change now under the current leadership of Todd Blanch. Angel families
[42:30]finally are feeling hurt and respected and taken seriously. There is a renewed focus
[42:38]on prosecuting immigration crimes and the transnational criminal organizations,
[42:44]drug trafficking and the like. So much work that's done by ICE and Homeland Security.
[42:51]Investigations go unseen. It's not limited to detaining the individuals who escape
[42:57]detection at the border. Their work is life protecting. From the time that I've spent
[43:05]talking with Todd Blanch, I knew immediately that he makes victims a priority. Under his
[43:13]direction, the DOJ has engaged directly with the Angel families and treated us not like
[43:19]political props, but as partners in preventing future tragedies. And that's all that we've
[43:26]ever asked for. Justice can't bring our children home. Nothing can. So the justice that we're
[43:38]seeking now is the assurance that their deaths won't be ignored and they won't be in vain
[43:46]and preventable tragedies from these laws not being enforced won't be repeated.
[43:52]I 100% believe Todd Blanch will be the one who can deliver that justice,
[44:01]saving lives of people who will never know it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Boss.
[44:07]Now Ms. Yocher. Good morning, Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin and members of this
[44:17]committee. I am here as a public servant, a former Justice Department employee and a concerned
[44:24]American who cares deeply about the future of our country. I had great hope that Todd Blanch
[44:31]would be an effective leader and a responsible steward of the Department of Justice, but he
[44:36]quickly proved me wrong. Two days after Mr. Blanch was confirmed as Deputy Attorney General,
[44:42]he fired me from my position as the department's career pardon attorney.
[44:47]I declined to rubber stamp a political favor for a friend of the president and it cost me my job.
[44:54]Mr. Blanch's office had asked me to recommend restoring the gun ownership rights of a convicted
[44:59]domestic abuser. I raised concerns about public safety, but Mr. Blanch's staff pressured me to
[45:07]go along anyway. I did not. Domestic violence is the leading type of homicide among women.
[45:15]When a domestic abuser is armed, his victim is five times more likely to be killed.
[45:21]But because this particular domestic abuser had a personal relationship with the president,
[45:26]Mr. Blanch's staff asked me to set aside my concerns. When I wouldn't, Mr. Blanch fired me
[45:33]within hours. He then took extraordinary measures to silence me. He sent U.S. Marshals to my
[45:40]home in an effort to prevent me from speaking with members of Congress. I was shocked to hear
[45:48]Mr. Blanch's testimony about this yesterday. What he said about my firing is provably false.
[45:56]His claim that it had nothing to do with the concerns I raised is contradicted by documents
[46:01]and evidence. His claim that he tried to call me before sending Marshals to my home
[46:07]is flat out false. His claim that it is normal for DOJ to use armed law enforcement
[46:14]officers to deliver mail to the homes of its former employees is preposterous.
[46:22]The casual lies that Mr. Blanch tells, even while sitting in this chair testifying to this
[46:29]committee, are emblematic of a much larger problem. Courts across the country have said
[46:37]they can no longer trust the Justice Department to uphold the law and tell the truth.
[46:43]There are over 700 documented instances of DOJ violating judicial orders. There are nearly
[46:51]100 cases in which judges appointed by both parties have found that DOJ presented false or
[46:57]misleading information in court. Earlier this week, a federal judge found that Mr. Blanch
[47:04]personally misled this Congress about the Department's settlement agreement with President
[47:10]Trump. To the American public, it looks like Mr. Blanch is running DOJ as Donald Trump's
[47:18]personal law firm. He is using law enforcement powers to pursue petty grudges harbored by the
[47:25]President. These pointless vendettas are wasting our scarce resources and destroying DOJ's
[47:34]credibility. Mr. Blanch has repeatedly placed President Trump's interests ahead of the interests
[47:42]of the country. The collusive settlement agreement is a perfect example. It protects the
[47:48]entire Trump family and all of their businesses from any investigation or audit forever. It gives
[47:57]away nearly $2 billion of our money for no reason at all. It is a windfall for the President and
[48:05]his allies at the expense of the American people. A court found that signing this agreement was a
[48:11]betrayal of Mr. Blanch's duty to zealously represent the interests of the United States.
[48:17]That is the most basic obligation of the Attorney General. Mr. Blanch said yesterday that
[48:24]the settlement fund is dead. It is not. That is contract law 101. Mr. Trump or his sons could
[48:32]seek to enforce it at any time. Mr. Blanch gave bizarre excuses for not meeting with
[48:40]Jeffrey Epstein's victims. Yet he spent two days personally eliciting testimony from
[48:47]Maxwell, Epstein's partner in crime. After this imprisoned sex trafficker made statements claiming
[48:55]to exonerate the President, she was moved to a minimum security camp. That is a grievous breach
[49:02]of DOJ policy. It is an abuse of Mr. Blanch's office. It is a terrible betrayal of Epstein and
[49:11]Maxwell's victims. Mr. Blanch's callous approach to the Epstein case matches his cavalier attitude
[49:19]toward rearming domestic abusers. At the end of the day, the priority of this DOJ is protecting
[49:27]powerful men even when it comes at the expense of vulnerable women.
[49:34]What Mr. Blanch is doing is dangerous. Earlier this week, two Supreme Court justices sat here
[49:40]and testified about the terrifying threats that judges are facing in this country.
[49:46]Meanwhile, Mr. Blanch is fueling those threats by attacking judges who rule against the
[49:51]administration and declaring a war against the courts. These are not partisan concerns.
[49:59]Americans across the political spectrum rely on DOJ to keep us safe and free.
[50:06]Mr. Blanch has shown that he is willing to put all of that at risk to serve a political agenda.
[50:13]I beg the members of this committee to think about what this is costing our country.
[50:18]Please do not degrade our justice system further by promoting Mr. Blanch. Thank you.
[50:30]Good morning Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin and distinguished members of the Senate
[50:34]Judiciary Committee. My name is John Adler and I appear before you today in my personal capacity
[50:40]to provide testimony in support of the nomination of the Honorable Todd Blanch to serve as the
[50:44]United States Attorney General. I respectfully offer my perspective both as a former colleague
[50:49]of Acting Attorney General Blanch and as a national law enforcement organization leader.
[50:54]My experience in law enforcement spans over 30 years and I was honored to serve under 10
[50:59]attorney generals as a federal law enforcement officer. Concurrent with my active duty law
[51:04]enforcement service, I also served as the national president of the Federal Law Enforcement
[51:08]Officers Association for two terms representing federal offices from 65 different agencies
[51:14]nationwide. As a volunteer law enforcement leader, I had and continue to have the
[51:18]privilege of serving with the leaders of the largest national law enforcement organizations
[51:23]including the FOP, NAPO, NSA, IACP and others. I have dedicated my life towards making it
[51:29]safer for those who serve and supporting innovative approaches towards augmenting both
[51:34]officer and public safety which are intertwined. As a career tactical instructor, I emphasize
[51:40]marrying tactical proficiency with compassion and civility. Within a legal context, I am
[51:46]convinced that Acting Attorney General Blanch exudes this. When I joined the U.S. Attorney's
[51:51]Office in April 2001, I met an incredibly intelligent and highly motivated paralegal
[51:56]by the name of Todd Blanch. My first impression of then paralegal Blanch was that he moved like
[52:01]a football fullback carrying the federal criminal statutes book under his arm as he
[52:06]charged through the revolving doors. It didn't take long for me to figure out why all the
[52:10]prosecutors were so friendly with Mr. Blanch. They all wanted him on their trial teams.
[52:15]It was clear from the beginning that paralegal Blanch had a passion for prosecuting violent
[52:20]crimes. He later became an assistant U.S. Attorney and his amazing work ethic and passion
[52:26]for combating violent crime were unparalleled for a new AUSA. AUSA Blanch exuded the speak softly
[52:33]but carry overwhelming evidence demeanor. It was no surprise to anyone at the office that AUSA Blanch
[52:39]ultimately became the co-chief of the Violent Crimes Unit. It was clear that Unit Chief
[52:44]Blanch was fully committed to litigating violent crime cases in furtherance of public
[52:48]safety. For context, I want to emphasize that the Acting Attorney General began his paralegal
[52:54]and prosecutorial career in an office that was predominantly represented by AUSAs with different
[52:59]political views. What impressed me during my 16 years with the U.S. Attorney's Office was the
[53:04]unified commitment to the rule of law, irrespective of political affiliation. I am
[53:11]absolutely convinced that if confirmed as the Attorney General, Acting Attorney General Blanch
[53:15]will carry forward that spirit and unwavering commitment to the rule of law. During the
[53:21]terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New
[53:25]York was located in the hot zone in New York City. While we often hear the Acting Attorney
[53:31]General speak of the extraordinary bravery of first responders who run forward into harm's way,
[53:36]he exuded that charge forward spirit during the challenging days following 9-11.
[53:41]I had profound respect for his service above self-spirit then and it has only grown. Moving
[53:47]forward to Deputy Attorney General Blanch's tenure as the Acting Attorney General, his outreach
[53:52]and engagement with Law Enforcement Nation-Ride has been extraordinary. Same can be said for his
[53:57]24-7 staff. In speaking with my fellow National Law Enforcement Organization leaders, it is clear
[54:04]that I have great respect for the Acting Attorney General and appreciate his commitment
[54:08]to backing the blue. Acting Attorney General Blanch has demonstrated a strong commitment
[54:13]to officer safety and ensuring that all law enforcement officers have the same protection
[54:18]under the law. According to the FBI's recent annual report, 90,000 law enforcement officers
[54:23]were assaulted in 2025. That represents a 10-year high. Acting Attorney General has made
[54:29]clear that his department will stand by law enforcement and support the prosecution of anyone
[54:35]who assaults a law enforcement officer. Civility does not work when it's one-sided. He has
[54:41]earned the respect and admiration of officers nationwide. In terms of civility, Acting Attorney
[54:46]General Blanch has distinguished himself during the substantial time he spent with all the
[54:50]National Law Enforcement Organizations during National Police Week. In particular, the time
[54:55]he spent with the concerns of police survivors, which are the survivors of our heroes killed in
[55:00]the line of duty, was heartfelt and riveting. Much like his powerful support for our angel
[55:05]families, Acting Attorney General Blanch is equally supportive of the surviving family members
[55:09]of our fallen heroes, and I have no doubt he will continue that as he prioritizes the safety
[55:14]of all Americans. As the father of a beautiful teenage daughter, I worry about her safety every
[55:20]day. I expect our government leaders to do everything they can to support a safe and just
[55:25]quality of life for all our children. That should be an unbreakable priority. I sleep well knowing
[55:31]that my daughter's safety and all Americans are an unwavering priority for Acting Attorney
[55:35]General Blanch and his team. Under his leadership and through the dedication of all law enforcement
[55:40]officers, violent crime continues to be driven down. We must sustain these powerful results,
[55:46]and we need Acting Attorney General Blanch to be confirmed as our nation's chief law
[55:50]enforcement officer. Throughout my law enforcement career, I wore and continue to wear a pendant
[55:56]that has John 15-13 inscribed. Greater love hath known than this to lay down one life's
[56:01]for a friend. I am absolutely convinced that the Acting Attorney General Blanch will exude
[56:08]that spirit of the scripture and do everything he can to protect the safety of all Americans
[56:13]by following the rule of law. I thereforely respect that the committee set aside any
[56:17]political differences, demonstrate its unwavering commitment to both officer and public safety,
[56:22]and vote to confirm Acting Attorney General Blanch as the next Attorney General. Thank you.
[56:28]Thank you. Ms. Boss, first of all, thank you for your courage coming forward.
[56:36]You know how important it is to have effective leadership in pursuing justice. I think you've
[56:43]answered my question in your last two minutes of your testimony, but I'd like to give you an
[56:49]opportunity to say it once again, how you feel about Mr. Blanch and the prospects of his
[56:56]continued leadership at the Justice Department. Thank you, Chairman.
[57:05]I feel like we have already seen what has come out of the Justice Department as far as the
[57:13]prosecutions of the drug trafficking, the cartels. He is following up the hard work of
[57:22]the men and women that are in the ICE agent's CBP, and he's prosecuting those dangerous
[57:31]criminals, and that is making a difference. Thank you very much. Now, Ms. Oyer,
[57:39]we know the Biden administration was the most active pardoning administration
[57:45]in American history, 4,000 total acts of clemency. I think you were the pardon attorney
[57:55]on January the 17th, 2025, when President Biden granted more communications in a single day
[58:04]than any prior president had over that entire presidency. Is that right?
[58:10]I was the pardon attorney on that date, sir.
[58:14]Were you also the pardon attorney on December 23rd, 2024, when President Biden commuted 37
[58:24]of 40 inmates on federal death row? Yes, sir, I was.
[58:29]Thank you for that. So I want to bring up some of these
[58:35]uh, commutations. Thomas Sanders, who killed a 12-year-old girl, Lexus Roberts. He shot Lexus
[58:46]four times and slit her throat after the girl had witnessed him murder her mother.
[58:53]Did you object to President Biden's commuting his sentence? Sir, I'm not able to discuss
[59:00]the recommendations that I made to the president regarding acts of clemency.
[59:06]Uh, can you speak? Uh, did you turn your microphone on? I believe it's on, sir.
[59:15]You were the pardon attorney, yeah. I was, yes, yes.
[59:18]You recommended, you didn't object to the recommendation.
[59:22]Sir, I'm not able to discuss the recommendations I provided to the
[59:26]president about clemency matters, which are considered to be covered by executive privilege.
[59:32]Okay, I want you to know that I have read evidence that you made this recommendation.
[59:39]So are you telling me the evidence I read that I'm wrong? So did you make the
[59:44]recommendation or are you the one you're telling me you can't talk about it?
[59:48]Sir, just like Mr. Blanche explained yesterday, I'm not free to discuss the recommendations
[59:53]that I provided to the White House because they are covered by executive privilege.
[59:59]You can't even tell me if you contacted the victim's family.
[1:00:04]You can't say yes or no to that. Sir, I cannot talk about the
[1:00:09]discussions I had unless the White House chooses to waive the executive privilege.
[1:00:14]I would be happy to come back and speak with you or other members of this committee.
[1:00:18]And I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you what I know.
[1:00:24]So let's go to the case of Jorge Avila Torres, who stabbed to death 8-year-old Laura Hobbs
[1:00:34]and 9-year-old Crystal Tobias, who were riding their bicycles in Chicago sunburn.
[1:00:43]He had also sexually assaulted at least one of them, and four years later he strangled to
[1:00:50]death a 20-year-old naval officer, Amanda Snell, in her barracks.
[1:00:56]So you can't talk about this, but I have read evidence that you made this recommendation
[1:01:03]and you can't even tell me yes or no whether you made that recommendation.
[1:01:08]Well, sir, what I can tell you is that President Biden did commute the sentences
[1:01:13]of 37 individuals who were on death row to sentences of life imprisonment, and all of
[1:01:18]those individuals will remain incarcerated for the rest of their lives, most likely in
[1:01:23]maximum security prisons. Well, we know what the
[1:01:25]commentations did, but the fact is that they were taken off death row.
[1:01:31]Then we have the case of Dylan Roof, shot up a church in South Carolina.
[1:01:38]That made national history for a long period of time in his trial.
[1:01:43]He murdered nine African Americans in a racially motivated attack, and you're telling me you can't
[1:01:50]talk about that, but I have read evidence that you made this recommendation.
[1:01:58]Since you can't comment on it, I'm just going to have to tell you
[1:02:02]that you made that recommendation. Robert Bowers murdered 11 people in
[1:02:08]Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue in the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community
[1:02:15]in American history, and you're telling me you can't talk about the commutation of Robert
[1:02:22]Bowers, but I want to tell you that I have read evidence that you made this recommendation.
[1:02:29]And then also Johar Sarnayov planted bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, killing three
[1:02:39]and injuring hundreds in an act of terrorism, and you're telling me you can't talk about that,
[1:02:46]but I want you to know that I have read evidence that you made this recommendation,
[1:02:52]and it seems pretty, I'm going to give you a chance to react to it,
[1:02:57]but it seems pretty obvious that you were fired because the current Justice Department
[1:03:02]leadership disagreed with how you handled the pardon's last administration. Do you want to
[1:03:08]respond? Sir, regarding these cases, these are absolutely horrific cases, and every one of
[1:03:14]the individuals you mentioned will remain incarcerated for the rest of their lives,
[1:03:18]most likely in a maximum security prison facility. As far as the reasons for my firing,
[1:03:23]I've been in litigation with the Justice Department for over a year about my firing,
[1:03:28]which was plainly illegal, and Mr. Blanche's comments in this room yesterday are the first
[1:03:34]time I have ever heard the explanation that I was fired because of recommendations I made to
[1:03:40]the prior administration about how to accomplish their clemency objectives. Mr. Blanche's Justice
[1:03:46]Department submitted a pleading to the Merit Systems Protection Board that stated that the
[1:03:52]facts about my firing were not in dispute. The facts, as I have been saying for one year plus,
[1:03:58]are that I was fired within hours of declining to make a recommendation that I believed was
[1:04:04]very dangerous, and Mr. Blanche's statement yesterday that it was for another reason
[1:04:09]materialized out of thin air and has never been stated before. Okay. Mr. Ashcroft,
[1:04:16]you served this nation with distinction during your tenure as Attorney General.
[1:04:20]You know what it takes to do the job and to do it well based on Mr. Blanche's leadership
[1:04:27]of the Justice Department during this administration. Do you believe he would
[1:04:31]serve as an effective and capable Attorney General? Well, I think the statistics and
[1:04:38]the history tells a story here. Thank you for the question, but Todd Blanche has a heritage
[1:04:44]and history of involvement in the Justice Department, pursuing the rule of law and
[1:04:49]enforcing the rule of law, and that extended from his time as an assistant in the office
[1:04:57]when I was Attorney General 25 years ago to recent times when his aggressive approach
[1:05:03]in fighting crime has actually been a part of the effort that's driven down violent crime
[1:05:11]across the country, and particularly in cases where the Department has been welcomed to assist
[1:05:17]and work with local officials. In my home jurisdiction in southwest Missouri, they had
[1:05:22]Operation Spring Cleanup, and a number of very important prosecutions were begun at that time,
[1:05:31]and I think it's a credit to him. I have no doubt that his commitment to maintaining the
[1:05:36]safety and security of Americans and their rights will be pursued in the pursuit of the
[1:05:43]rule of law and within the bounds of the Constitution of the United States, which is
[1:05:48]the framing that I think every American expects, that the Constitution and rule of law of the
[1:05:53]United States be followed and defended. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Miss Boss, it breaks my heart
[1:06:05]to hear the story of you and your loss of your daughter, and I just want to say my heart
[1:06:12]goes out to you and to your husband carrying on for her with your granddaughter is the
[1:06:20]greatest tribute you can give her, I'm sure. I'm sorry you went through this terrible tragedy.
[1:06:26]I'm glad you're here today to tell that story. Miss Binsky, it's hard to imagine
[1:06:34]that this government kept publishing your personal information. Did anyone notify them
[1:06:41]of this breach of privacy? Yeah, I mean we notified them immediately back in the first
[1:06:47]document release, and even before the document release happened, after the Epstein Files
[1:06:51]Transparency Act passed, like I said in my testimony, my lawyer teamed up with other
[1:06:57]lawyers and gave 350 names, and basically every batch that came forward all the way through
[1:07:06]I believe was April, but in the January batch I was exposed. So did this happen to
[1:07:13]any of the others who were present here? Oh yes, I think almost all. Yes, there were
[1:07:19]hundreds of victims that were outed and Jane Doe's, and I do want to speak to just
[1:07:26]the damages for a moment. We've been receiving threats, we've had loss of jobs,
[1:07:30]we've had loss of confidentiality and privacy, but there's another piece here, and it's that
[1:07:37]this idea of withholding information, we're trying to get justice. We have always been
[1:07:41]trying to seek justice, and we're seeing, if you just even look at New Mexico right now,
[1:07:47]that the AG, the New Mexico AG has attempted five times to get the files
[1:07:52]from Todd Blanch and from this DOJ, and it's obstruction, they are obstructing. So for us,
[1:08:01]yes, of course there are so many damages, there are so many things that we are mourning
[1:08:05]the loss of, including a lot of our innocence and who we were as these young girls,
[1:08:12]but to still see it be obstructed after 30 years, and this is five administrations,
[1:08:17]we're not saying that this is just this administration, we've been at this fight for
[1:08:22]30 years. So we just really hope that there's a huge impact as far as just releasing information
[1:08:31]and making sure that it's followed up on. I can't understand how this attorney general
[1:08:35]can find 48 hours to visit with Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been prosecuted for sex
[1:08:42]trafficking, and can't find 30 minutes to meet with the survivors of that sexual predatory
[1:08:51]conduct. It's certainly not for lack of trying. We have tried in every way we know how to try,
[1:08:57]and then we did hear from him yesterday that he would sit with counsel, and I would say,
[1:09:02]I think many of us in this room would be interested in meeting with him today if we could.
[1:09:06]Many of the members of the committee will remember when we had the Olympic athletes in
[1:09:11]here who had been sexually abused, and the head of the FBI, the head of the FBI sat through
[1:09:18]their entire testimony to show his concern for what had happened to them and any wrongdoing by
[1:09:25]the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That to me was the right thing to do from both sides.
[1:09:32]Why in the world would Mr. Blanche at this point say he doesn't have the time?
[1:09:36]I couldn't understand his argument yesterday. He couldn't see you because you had a lawyer?
[1:09:41]He couldn't see you because you didn't have a lawyer?
[1:09:43]Yeah, I think it was because we had a lawyer, but I think as a career prosecutor,
[1:09:48]we talk so much about Todd Blanche's credentials in this room, and we've heard a lot about them,
[1:09:52]and that's great, but I think as a career prosecutor, he should be salivating by this
[1:09:58]case, right? This case is, it's gold for somebody that wants to prosecute. There are
[1:10:04]six million files, there are thousands of victims, and yet all we've seen is one
[1:10:08]perpetrator that died in prison. The other perpetrator is now in a minimum security
[1:10:13]penitentiary, and Todd Blanche believes that there are zero investigations when he's already
[1:10:18]been told by members of the House that that is inaccurate.
[1:10:21]I'll just tell you point blank. I don't think his name should be called on the floor of
[1:10:24]the United States Senate until he meets with you. It's not too much to ask. Set aside two
[1:10:30]hours, four hours, whatever it takes so that there's clearly an effort by this government
[1:10:36]to get all the information and make a judgment as to what to do with it, but to shun you and
[1:10:42]to snub you at this point, there's something else going on here. There's got to be,
[1:10:47]someone told me once in politics there's always a good reason, and then there's always a real
[1:10:51]reason. What is the real reason why Todd Blanche does not want to meet with the survivors
[1:10:58]of Jeffrey Epstein? It appears from the outside reputational harm, and that is what I
[1:11:02]think is at the core of this, that he prioritizes the reputation of the administration
[1:11:09]over survivors of sexual abuse and of crime survivors in this country.
[1:11:14]Well, I hope the message goes out to all senators on both sides of the table.
[1:11:19]I do want to say, you know, to that end, we are not, we've been saying that we're
[1:11:22]not political. I've asked everyone, we've met with a lot of your offices on both sides,
[1:11:26]and every single conversation, Mr. Hawley, we had a great conversation with your office,
[1:11:31]right? It was amazing, and I feel so much hope leaving those spaces, actually. And when
[1:11:37]we had those conversations, it just felt like you see us as human beings. You don't see us,
[1:11:41]like we have survivors on both sides of the aisle. We are not here to be political. These
[1:11:46]are just our stories, like 17-year-old me, I promise you, not political. But so when we have
[1:11:51]these very real interactions in your offices, we hope that you can put politics aside.
[1:11:56]It was something so beautiful that we saw during the FC Files Transparency Act. There was a
[1:12:00]moment where Marjorie Taylor Greene went and sat right next to Melanie Stansbury, and that is a
[1:12:04]moment that will live in my memory forever because they crossed party lines for something
[1:12:08]that was really important. So I hope that you can all do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:12:15]Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on that note, Ms. Binsky, and for everybody who's here,
[1:12:19]all of the victims, thank you for being here. Thank you for standing up and telling your
[1:12:23]stories. Ms. Boss, thank you for being here and for telling us about your daughter. I'm
[1:12:27]sorry for what all of you have been through. I want to say thank you and honor your voices
[1:12:31]and honor what you're doing. Ms. Orger, if I could just turn to you.
[1:12:34]You were President Biden's pardon attorney. Is that correct?
[1:12:38]I was the Justice Department's pardon attorney.
[1:12:40]You recommended, you made clemency recommendations to the White House whether
[1:12:43]or not to pardon inmates. Is that correct? My job was to make clemency recommendations.
[1:12:48]And in that capacity, you recommended that the President of the United States, Joe Biden,
[1:12:53]grant clemency to all 40 federal death row inmates, all of them. Clear them out. Correct?
[1:12:59]Sir, as I told Chairman Grassley, I'm not free to discuss the recommendations.
[1:13:04]Well, that's what your memo says. I mean, we have your memo. Your memo of November 4th,
[1:13:09]2024 says, and I quote, disparity and undue severity of sentence, which are present in
[1:13:15]many, if not all of these cases, have been recognized as grounds for clemency.
[1:13:19]And you went on to recommend in that memo and a series of other memos that are now recorded
[1:13:24]and public record that the President of the United States grant clemency to murderers,
[1:13:29]rapists, and the most horrible offenders, all of them, clear death row completely out.
[1:13:33]I'm amazed you've been called here today. I'm absolutely amazed by it.
[1:13:37]But let's just talk about the people who you recommended. You talk about honoring victims.
[1:13:41]The people who you recommended get clemency and live at the expense and
[1:13:46]sufferance of taxpayers for the rest of their lives. Let's start with Dylan Roof.
[1:13:50]Dylan was a neo-Nazi who murdered nine African American worshipers at a Bible study
[1:13:58]in Charleston, South Carolina, 2015. Do you remember this case?
[1:14:01]I do remember it very well.
[1:14:02]I would hope you did. Here's his victims. Do you want to look at them?
[1:14:05]There they are. Nine of them at a Bible study in a church, killed in cold blood.
[1:14:13]The DOJ knew from day one that he had decided, I'm going to quote from the prosecutors,
[1:14:18]decided to attack African Americans because of their race. He further decided to attack
[1:14:23]African American worshipers in a black church in order to make his attack more notorious,
[1:14:30]more notorious. And yet you recommended that he be granted clemency, live at the expense
[1:14:36]of taxpayers for the rest of his life, substitute your judgment for that of the
[1:14:39]American judicial system. Do you stand by that recommendation today?
[1:14:42]Sir, I'm not going to comment on the recommendations that I made, but I can
[1:14:46]tell you that Mr. Roof is going to die in prison as...
[1:14:49]Oh, he's going to live in prison for a very long time because of you,
[1:14:52]because of your recommendations. And here's what you said in your memo of October 30th, 2024.
[1:14:57]You said that actually Roof is not a compelling candidate for clemency,
[1:15:00]but you recommended it anyway. Why? Because he suffered from anxiety, you said. Right?
[1:15:06]He suffered from anxiety. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the family of his victims might
[1:15:13]suffer a little bit of anxiety because he marched into their church and murdered them in cold
[1:15:17]blood because he was an incredible racist and he wanted to get on TV?
[1:15:22]Sir.
[1:15:23]Do you regret it?
[1:15:24]I'm not going to comment on the recommendations that I made to the president.
[1:15:27]Let's talk about Robert Bowers, a man who regularly spewed such vile hatred of Jews.
[1:15:32]It's unlike anything I've ever seen. He barged into a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018,
[1:15:37]and he shot everybody he could find, killing 11 innocent people who were there to worship.
[1:15:44]A federal jury in Pittsburgh unanimously recommended the death sentence after finding
[1:15:49]him guilty on 63 counts. Here they are. They're his victims. Take a good look.
[1:15:56]Look, you recommended clemency for this person who went in and killed these people just because
[1:16:04]they're Jews. He killed, the other guy killed people just because they're black.
[1:16:08]This guy killed people just because they're Jews. A jury recommended that he be sentenced
[1:16:12]to death, and you substituted your judgment for theirs, and now he's going to live.
[1:16:17]Are you proud of that?
[1:16:19]Sir, what I am proud of is the fact that I took my job as pardon attorney extremely
[1:16:25]seriously. Apparently not seriously enough. You certainly didn't take the victims seriously.
[1:16:29]Then there's Jorge Avila Torres, who wasn't just a murderer. He was a serial killer and a rapist.
[1:16:37]Here is who he assaulted and killed. He sexually assaulted and killed eight-year-old
[1:16:43]Laura Hobbs and nine-year-old Crystal Tobias in a Chicago suburb in 2005,
[1:16:50]and then four years after that he committed another murder. He slaughtered a fellow
[1:16:55]service member, Navy Petty Officer Amanda Snell, in 2009 while she was in her barracks.
[1:17:01]That's what he did, and you recommended clemency for this individual, and now he'll live
[1:17:08]his life at the expense of taxpayers because you substituted your judgment for that of the
[1:17:15]American judicial system jury judges the whole lot, and yet you're here to tell us that you're
[1:17:20]somehow a victim? I don't think so, Ms. Oyer. I think your judgment is astoundingly
[1:17:26]terrible. I'm amazed that this side of the aisle has called you, and I just ask my friends
[1:17:30]on this side of the aisle, do you agree with this? Is this what you want? Do you want these
[1:17:36]people to be pardoned and live at the expense of taxpayers for their whole lives? Do you want
[1:17:41]to excuse the murders of African American churchgoers? Do you want to excuse the murders
[1:17:46]of Jews in their synagogues? Do you want to excuse the murders of these children?
[1:17:50]Because that's what she did, and now she's online hawking products to try to make money
[1:17:55]off of it. I see you've got your own website where you put your face on baseball caps and
[1:18:01]mugs, thelawyeroyer.com. You're trying to make money on this? This is unbelievable,
[1:18:07]Ms. Oyer, and yet you say you're a victim? These are the victims, and you helped victimize them,
[1:18:15]and what you're doing is wrong. I hope every member on this side of the aisle will repudiate
[1:18:19]what you have done and what you stand for. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:18:22]Sir, I assume that your questions directed at me were rhetorical and that you're giving
[1:18:26]They're not rhetorical at all. I asked you to respond and you said you wouldn't,
[1:18:30]so what I did is I read to you what you have said. I quoted verbatim,
[1:18:35]and I'm happy to keep doing it. In fact, I'd ask now, Mr. Chairman, that this report,
[1:18:39]Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty Report, be entered into the record.
[1:18:42]It contains information regarding Ms. Oyer, her recommendations, and the track record
[1:18:47]of all of it. The written records are here. I ask to be entered in the record.
[1:18:50]It'll be Ms. Oyer. Take a minute to respond if you want to.
[1:18:58]Thank you, Chairman Grassley. I, under President Biden, just like under President
[1:19:05]Trump, had a job to do, which was to make recommendations to the President about how to
[1:19:09]best accomplish their clemency objectives. I put the utmost effort into doing that in a way
[1:19:16]that was consistent with the interests of the justice system and all of its stakeholders,
[1:19:20]which includes crime victims, as well as defendants, as well as family members,
[1:19:25]as well as judges, as well as prosecutors, all criminal justice system stakeholders.
[1:19:32]The process that I presided over was one that was beyond reproach. What's happening now with
[1:19:38]clemency is an absolute disgrace, and I'm sorry that I can't answer the questions about
[1:19:43]the specific recommendations in this public setting, but I would be glad to meet with
[1:19:47]any members of this committee who have concerns privately to discuss, to the extent I can,
[1:19:52]once you meet with the victims' families. Here's the disgrace.
[1:20:00]Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Ashcroft, welcome back to the Senate. You knew Jim Comey?
[1:20:14]Yes, indeed I did. You trusted him?
[1:20:18]He was the Deputy Attorney General, as well as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
[1:20:23]of New York. You trusted him with the top job in your department?
[1:20:27]I asked him to help administer justice at the Department of Justice.
[1:20:30]Yeah. You respected him?
[1:20:33]Yes, I did. Can you vouch for
[1:20:39]this department's prosecution of him for lying to Congress or for the process
[1:20:48]that was performed? I'm not in a position,
[1:20:51]I don't know all the facts. I'm not in a position to comment on pending investigations
[1:20:57]or prosecutions. Can you vouch for this department's
[1:21:02]prosecution of him for posting a picture of the numbers 8647 or the process that led to that?
[1:21:13]My response would certainly have to be the same as it is for any prosecution.
[1:21:18]I'm not a part of the department now. I'm not fully informed of its factual basis
[1:21:23]or for the considerations it's made in bringing prosecutions.
[1:21:29]What are your views today of Mr. Comey's character and merits?
[1:21:40]I'm not going to start to discuss the character and merits of individuals,
[1:21:47]especially those who are standing in a position of responding to
[1:21:52]charges from the Justice Department. I can respond to what I believed during the time
[1:21:58]I served as Attorney General and when he served with me and his service to me and
[1:22:03]I believe to the United States at that time was commendable and honorable.
[1:22:08]What is OPR in the Department of Justice? I believe it's Office of
[1:22:15]Professional Responsibility. And what is its role?
[1:22:21]Its role is to encourage individuals in the department to act in compliance with and
[1:22:31]in conformity with the rules of ethics and responsibility.
[1:22:34]And did you respect the role of the Office of Professional
[1:22:37]Responsibility when you were Attorney General?
[1:22:40]I certainly did. I hope that they would advise me properly to keep me out of trouble.
[1:22:46]If the Office of Professional Responsibility were functionally disabled
[1:22:54]by an administration and the Department of Justice,
[1:22:58]what message would that send to the line prosecutors?
[1:23:03]I'm not in a position to comment on a hypothetical of disabling and when you say
[1:23:10]functionally disabled, I think that requires an assumption of what does functionally disabled
[1:23:20]mean. I personally, it's a hypothetical to which I just am unable to respond.
[1:23:27]But you do agree that OPR does an important job and has an important role
[1:23:32]and is important to the Department of Justice in the performance of its duties.
[1:23:36]I certainly respected the Department's operation, including OPR, at the time of my
[1:23:43]opportunity to serve as Attorney General of the United States.
[1:23:47]While you were Attorney General, were there procedures that took place when
[1:23:55]judicial findings of prosecutorial misconduct or dishonesty occurred?
[1:24:04]I have to say I don't remember charges of prosecutorial misconduct that I dealt with.
[1:24:12]Yeah, they were pretty scarce until now. It was pretty unusual to have judges say that
[1:24:19]arguments were made in bad faith, that arguments were made as pretexts,
[1:24:25]that arguments were disingenuous, that arguments were shoddy or terrible,
[1:24:31]that the department was losing or sacrificing its credibility,
[1:24:37]that the department was disrespecting orders of the court, that the department had lied or was
[1:24:42]engaged in sham, that there was willful and intentional noncompliance or willful disregard
[1:24:49]of court orders, that department lawyers were contemptuous, or that their behavior
[1:24:54]and arguments were unconscionable. To me, those are red flag words.
[1:24:58]I was a United States attorney, and if my federal court had used those words about my line attorneys,
[1:25:06]there would have been some follow-up. I expected in your department, if those kind of words were
[1:25:12]used, there'd at least be some preliminary follow-up. If it were serious, there might
[1:25:19]actually be a review by the Office of Professional Responsibility. Does that sound
[1:25:23]like what likely would have happened during your day?
[1:25:25]I was only admonished at one time that I remember by a court for having
[1:25:32]commented on evidence. I thought it was pretty good evidence, and I think I just said pretty
[1:25:37]good evidence. Yeah, I didn't mean you. I meant your line prosecutors.
[1:25:40]At that time, I decided that I needed to be more careful about my remarks.
[1:25:47]My remarks were safeguarded and carefully made, and frankly, I might add, more carefully made
[1:25:54]than the remarks of some of the judicial officers who, while very concerned about
[1:26:01]the Justice Department, seem to be willing to themselves engage in political considerations,
[1:26:08]which I didn't think were appropriate for the judiciary. So maybe there's a
[1:26:12]problem that's broader than we would otherwise recognize.
[1:26:17]Well, you've changed the topic a little bit to your own comments and response to that,
[1:26:23]which is fine. I appreciate that you've said that. But my question had to do with
[1:26:27]when criticisms like that are leveled against department lawyers, there is ordinarily some
[1:26:33]kind of a process or review that takes place. They're not just brushed off.
[1:26:39]That is correct. Is it not? It's certainly the reason that the
[1:26:44]Office of Professional Responsibility exists to safeguard against things that are
[1:26:49]not responsibly done or undertaken in a way that discredits the department.
[1:26:55]Public confidence in the department is very important.
[1:26:58]Indeed. And the rule of law
[1:27:02]guided by the Constitution is at the foundation of our safeguarding liberties. And I take that
[1:27:08]seriously. I believed that with all my heart when I served, and I believe it today.
[1:27:12]Thank you, sir. Senator Schmitt.
[1:27:15]Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First and most importantly, I want to thank all the victims
[1:27:20]who are here for your courage to come forward. This is not easy to do to relive
[1:27:25]everything. So thank you for being here and telling your stories.
[1:27:28]Ms. Oyer, I want to turn to you. You were Biden's part of an attorney.
[1:27:32]And I want to make sure I'm clear. Your testimony here today is that you
[1:27:37]were fired because you wouldn't recommend restoring Mel Gibson's gun rights. Is that right?
[1:27:42]I was fired just hours after I declined to make that recommendation.
[1:27:46]You can't think of another reason why you might have been fired.
[1:27:49]That's the only explanation that I am aware of. The Justice Department actually put in a
[1:27:54]pleading that was submitted in my appeal of my firing the fact that the facts of my firing
[1:27:59]are not in dispute. On November, and you talked about,
[1:28:03]you're concerned about public safety, on November 4th, 2024, you authored a 73-page
[1:28:08]memorandum recommending the commutation of all 40 federal death sentences. Isn't that correct?
[1:28:13]Well, as I've told to members of the committee now.
[1:28:16]But don't play the game with me because it's not. They've waived executive privilege.
[1:28:21]I have the report right here. It's dated April 24th, 2026. It's actually your memo
[1:28:28]is quoted in here. It's public knowledge. And the idea that you would come here,
[1:28:33]you know that already. You would come here and disparage somebody else and not be willing
[1:28:38]to answer questions about how you commuted the sentences of murderers is ridiculous.
[1:28:43]I can't believe you're here to do that. I don't have the authority to commute.
[1:28:46]Do you deny it? Do you deny that you authored the memo?
[1:28:49]I'm not sure which memo you're referring to.
[1:28:52]I'm referring to the November 4th, 2024, 73-page memo. Do you deny authoring it?
[1:28:58]I can't say without having a memo. It's ridiculous. I honestly,
[1:29:01]I can't believe you did. You did and everybody in America and in the world can pull it up.
[1:29:06]So it's a ridiculous. It's like a document that has DOJ's logo on it.
[1:29:11]Yeah. And it quotes your letter. It quotes your letter.
[1:29:15]You're losing credit. You should just admit it. You should just admit you authored it.
[1:29:19]Everybody knows you authored it. So I'm not going to waste any more time on your
[1:29:23]convenient little game you're playing here. You also authored and recommended the
[1:29:27]commutation of the Boston Marathon bomber, the Tree of Life synagogue murderer,
[1:29:32]and Dylann Roof. We all know this. How many pages of the 73 pages did you dedicate to
[1:29:38]victims because you expressed your concern over victims? How many pages were dedicated
[1:29:41]to the victims? Sir, I don't have the memo.
[1:29:44]I can tell you three. Three pages. Three pages were dedicated to the victims.
[1:29:50]So I also happen to have, I made a special access request last year under the Presidential
[1:29:58]Records Act for documents from the Biden White House on the abuse of pardons and
[1:30:01]commutations. We recently got those documents. I want to show you a couple. Here's one.
[1:30:06]It's dated December 3rd, 2024, and it's an internal memo on the commutation of the 37
[1:30:12]death sentences that you were involved with. The memorandum states that the White House
[1:30:16]worked with reporters to, quote, ensure positive coverage. It says the White House gave advocates
[1:30:22]the elected officials resources and key messaging to amplify the news. You personally recommended
[1:30:29]commuting all 40 death sentence cases and even broader action than Biden took. Again,
[1:30:36]that included Dylann Roof, the Boston Marathon bomber, the Tree of Life synagogue shooter.
[1:30:41]Did you know that the White House was using your recommendations as a PR stunt?
[1:30:45]Sir, I have no idea what document you're referring to currently.
[1:30:49]Well, let me just ask you in general. Did you know that they were planning
[1:30:52]to message around your commutation? Sir, I was not an employee of the
[1:30:56]White House. I'll take that as a no. I'll take that as a no, but they use your ridiculous
[1:31:01]recommendation as a veneer of legitimacy. Document two.
[1:31:05]I was called here to talk about Mr. Blanche's nomination.
[1:31:08]Yeah, I know that's what you thought you came here to talk about. But the reality is
[1:31:12]your credibility is gone. You can't come here and do the political bidding of the Biden
[1:31:19]administration. And then when you're called out on that and being fired, and thank God
[1:31:24]you're being fired, you know what I really think? I think you thought you came here and
[1:31:28]you're selling merch, by the way. Do we have the hoodies that are up for sale?
[1:31:32]You sell merch. Let's throw the hoodies. I think you came here thinking that you were
[1:31:37]going to be ordained the high priestess of the resistance. That's what I think.
[1:31:43]That's why you're denying simple facts that you authored the memo commuting the sentences.
[1:31:48]Everyone knows that. And we have documents now from the White House that they use that memo
[1:31:55]as a PR stunt. And so you have no credibility to talk about Todd Blanche. You have none.
[1:32:01]You've come here. You deny basic facts. You recommended the commutation of murderers.
[1:32:07]You gave no quarter at all or any time to the victims of these brutal murders.
[1:32:14]So again, I can't believe you've been called here by the other side, but I'm glad we've
[1:32:19]had an opportunity to expose your hypocrisy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:32:26]Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all the witnesses who are being here.
[1:32:30]As a continuation of the confirmation process for Mr. Blanche, we are here to determine whether
[1:32:39]or not Mr. Blanche, who continues to be President Trump's lawyer and all that that implies,
[1:32:48]should be the Attorney General of the United States of America, who is supposed to be
[1:32:53]who is supposed to be defending the Constitution, not the President.
[1:32:59]Ms. Bensky, thank you so much for being here and for all of the other Epstein victims.
[1:33:06]Mr. Blanche was asked whether he would meet with you because we knew that he had refused,
[1:33:14]basically, to meet with the victims of the Epstein crimes. And he offered, apparently,
[1:33:20]yesterday, and he made some excuses about it not being appropriate for him to meet with the
[1:33:26]victims directly. Why? I do not know. But he offered up a staff person, and I understand that
[1:33:34]a staff person from his office contacted you, you and others, and offered to meet with your
[1:33:42]counsel. Is that correct? Not with you directly? I am not aware of a staffer reaching out.
[1:33:49]We, I don't, I can ask, but we have not heard from a staffer. No, we have not heard from a
[1:33:55]staffer in the last couple of hours. Okay, let's get that clarified. Did I misunderstand
[1:34:00]that, in fact, yesterday, when he said, I have a staff person here and we can get this
[1:34:06]done today, that they have not contacted you? They have not contacted us. He also said that
[1:34:13]it would not be appropriate for him to meet directly with you. So, not only is his staff
[1:34:19]not, have they not contacted you, as he indicated yesterday, that this could all happen
[1:34:27]yesterday, he continues to make excuses, as far as I can tell, for not meeting with you,
[1:34:32]in spite of the fact that he met for hours with Ms. Maxwell. Why is it so important? Can
[1:34:40]you tell us, once again, why is it so important for you to, you and the other victims of
[1:34:47]abstinence crimes, to meet with Mr. Blanch personally? Yeah, thank you for the question.
[1:34:53]I think that if a victim comes and reports a crime in the FBI, what is the first thing that
[1:35:01]they do? They follow up. Like, Law and Order SVU taught me that when I was 15 years old.
[1:35:06]The DOJ has never followed up in 30 years with any of us. There is a lot in the files right now
[1:35:13]that you should be investigating and looking into. And to my knowledge, I mean, they can ask,
[1:35:22]they can answer this too, but we have never been approached by anybody on the prosecutorial
[1:35:28]side of things. So, I do think, like, sitting down, telling our stories and explaining,
[1:35:35]the people that were in the room, we were witnesses of crimes. We had crimes committed to us
[1:35:40]directly. We do have a lot of information. And you would think that somebody would take that
[1:35:47]lead that's already in, like, we already went to the FBI because we wouldn't have 302s if we
[1:35:52]hadn't have gone to the FBI. It's already there. So, the following up of those 302s,
[1:35:59]and then once it's supposed to be handled by the Department of Justice,
[1:36:03]why aren't we hearing from prosecutors? This case was never handled correctly from the beginning.
[1:36:10]And he also made some excuses as to why personal information was not redacted
[1:36:18]and exposing many of you, including you and I.
[1:36:22]Yeah. I think something that stood out yesterday was that he had said that
[1:36:26]immediately when things were misredacted, that they were taken down and they fixed them,
[1:36:31]and within 24 hours they were put back up. That is entirely not true. There are still things
[1:36:36]that need to be redacted. And there's still survivor information in there,
[1:36:39]even today, from my awareness. I mean, my information just came down in April,
[1:36:45]and that was after begging. Would you say that Mr. Blanch
[1:36:49]exhibits a rather dismissive attitude toward all of you and the obscene crimes?
[1:36:56]One thousand percent, yes. Thank you.
[1:36:59]Ms. Oyer, Trump's DOJ under Todd Blanch leadership has purged career prosecutors
[1:37:07]for personal reasons for refusing to prioritize President Trump's interests
[1:37:11]over their constitutional oath. Todd Blanch has fired more than 1,200
[1:37:18]former career DOJ employees who worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations.
[1:37:24]This doesn't even include all of the DOJ attorneys who resigned
[1:37:31]because they didn't want to be part of the kind of DOJ that Todd Blanch is creating,
[1:37:37]which is basically not a Department of Justice, but a Department of Retribution
[1:37:42]and Corruption, in my view. Ms. Oyer, what risks does this pose to our country
[1:37:50]for the kind of DOJ that Todd Blanch is running?
[1:37:57]Senator, one of DOJ's greatest strengths historically has been its non-political
[1:38:02]career workforce of experts, people who are experts in their subject matter. That is
[1:38:06]crucial to keeping all of us safe. We need people who have specialization in things like
[1:38:11]national security, prosecuting child exploitation, all manner of sophisticated crimes involving
[1:38:17]cryptocurrency. Mr. Blanch has decimated the expertise of the career workforce.
[1:38:22]The Justice Department has lost over a quarter of its attorneys under his leadership
[1:38:27]and has not been able to replace them, certainly not with experienced,
[1:38:31]knowledgeable, non-political people. I think the DOJ is very much losing
[1:38:36]its credibility. And as Mr. Ashkov mentioned, the credibility and trust in DOJ is very
[1:38:42]important. The rule of law is very important. We have a president who does not believe
[1:38:47]the rule of law applies to him. And his attorney, Mr. Blanch, is helping him, helping
[1:38:54]the president, proceed with his basically anti-rule of law agenda. I thank everyone
[1:39:00]for testifying today. Thank you. Senator Booker.
[1:39:05]I just want to start off by saying, Ms. Oyer, I hold you in the highest esteem and
[1:39:09]respect, especially what you're doing now as a private citizen. You use a platform
[1:39:15]to educate people about the law. It is technical, but yet accessible. And the badgering you
[1:39:20]just endured, it should be completely unacceptable. You were asked to comment
[1:39:26]on things you didn't have before you. The treatment here, to me, is just outrageous.
[1:39:31]And I apologize on behalf of the United States Senate. This idea that as a private
[1:39:36]citizen you can't sell things is insulting to me when we have Cash Patel, our sitting
[1:39:43]FBI director, selling merch on his site. When you have a president of the United States
[1:39:50]hocking the Bible, and yet you as a private citizen who has a platform to inform people
[1:39:58]about the law, how dare we make such an accusation when the mockery of justice,
[1:40:06]the exploitation and the grifting off of their offices, has never received criticism
[1:40:11]from that side of the aisle. And yet they want to demean you as a private citizen
[1:40:16]for engaging in commerce. That's ridiculous. In addition to the fact that you were a career
[1:40:24]public servant for your entire life, you were a public defender,
[1:40:30]underpaid, overworked, not for a year, not for five years, but for years.
[1:40:36]The dignity and the service you have brought, no matter whether we disagree with your politics
[1:40:41]or not, should merit the praise of every single senator here. So I apologize for
[1:40:49]what you endured. I thank you for the service you've given to this country. And on
[1:40:55]matters of horrible killings, horrific acts, these are complicated matters. I hold here,
[1:41:04]and I'll submit this for the record, people who were victims, families, survivors,
[1:41:10]who wrote letters to the president of the United States asking not to have the death penalty
[1:41:15]put there. And I understand there's differing views, but you are putting those complicated
[1:41:20]decisions to write career memos for the president to make decisions about who's pardoned and not.
[1:41:27]And so I am sorry. What I witnessed, I came late to the hearing, was just unacceptable to me.
[1:41:32]And I am grateful, as somebody that follows you, that reposts your content, I am grateful that
[1:41:38]you're here. Thank you. I want to say, I didn't hear that on the microphone. Senators enjoy
[1:41:45]praise. So what did you say? Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I
[1:41:48]appreciate that. I just want to say, before serving as a pardoned attorney, I pointed out
[1:41:54]that you were a federal public defender with clients in the Bureau of Prisons.
[1:42:00]Was it customary process for transferring a Bureau prisoner from a low security prison
[1:42:06]to a minimum security camp? Was that standard practice? That was unheard of. Unheard of. It's
[1:42:11]against BOP policies. What role does the deputy attorney general usually play in that process?
[1:42:20]Usually the deputy attorney general would have no role in designating or transferring inmates.
[1:42:25]No role whatsoever, yet Todd Blanche went directly and met with him. Are you aware of
[1:42:31]any person serving time for child sex trafficking, like Ghislaine Maxwell,
[1:42:37]being transferred from a low security prison facility to a minimum security camp?
[1:42:43]I have never heard of that. It would be an egregious violation of the Department of Justice's
[1:42:47]own rules. Ms. Bansky, how do you feel knowing that the deputy attorney Todd Blanche went to
[1:42:55]meet with her for two days and then gave her a cushy transfer while he would not meet with
[1:43:03]you and then lie to this committee yesterday saying he was barred by the law, which a first
[1:43:10]year law student can know the difference of. How did that make you feel?
[1:43:14]It's devastating for survivors and I'd like to add to that that Annie Farmer, a victim and
[1:43:20]survivor who testified in Ghislaine Maxwell's hearing, actually wrote a letter to Todd Blanche
[1:43:25]immediately after that and requested a meeting with him regarding the move and the transfer
[1:43:30]and she's never heard anything back at all. It is insulting to heap upon survivors the
[1:43:36]indignities that he has by not even meeting with you, yet he transferred a sex offender
[1:43:44]to a cushy camp against BOP policies. It sounds like she got a sweetheart deal
[1:43:52]while he released your personal information, your address, phone numbers, images,
[1:44:00]and yet he seems to be favoring the victimizer and not the survivors. I'm out of time and
[1:44:07]it's honorable to see Mr. Ashcroft here, sir. I know you. I know your record. We may
[1:44:13]have disagreed on policies, but I also know you would never, when you were reviewing a
[1:44:19]merger, you would never go out to dinner with the parties of that merger.
[1:44:25]It would be unacceptable for a person that is supervising a matter to attend a social event
[1:44:34]with those people before your lawyers. It's about ethics. It's about the appearance of
[1:44:38]impropriety. It's about following the law. This nominee has not followed the ethics laws,
[1:44:45]has not followed the urgencies for avoiding the appearance of improprieties,
[1:44:49]has broken a bipartisan law passed by Congress, has demeaned and degraded survivors of sexual
[1:44:57]violence, and has shielded the president by some kind of deal we know nothing about
[1:45:03]that allowed her now to be transferred to some cushy camp that has never been done
[1:45:09]before with sex offenders. This man should not be in this office. I cannot believe we're
[1:45:14]going through this farce when his record alone should make him disqualified, not for it to be the
[1:45:20]attorney general, but for even being employed by the federal government. Thank you.
[1:45:25]Senator Welch.
[1:45:28]Thank you very much. First of all, Ms. Boss, thank you so much. And I fully support your
[1:45:34]advocacy that the Department of Justice have as a priority focusing on victims. And I also want
[1:45:43]to express to the Epstein victims my appreciation for allowing me to be with you yesterday and be
[1:45:50]so uplifted by your support for one another and all you've done to ennoble the rights
[1:45:58]of victims and the strength of victims to recover. Thank you very much. Mr. Ashcroft,
[1:46:06]I wanted to first of all say we seem to have a problem in Missouri with attorney
[1:46:10]generals not being able to keep their job. They all end up in the U.S. Senate.
[1:46:16]You started quite a trend with Mr. Hawley and Mr. Schmidt.
[1:46:20]Well, in all deference, it should be remembered that a very important member of the Senate named
[1:46:25]Jack Danforth had previously served as attorney general of Missouri. So myself excluded, I have
[1:46:34]been privileged to be in a line of individuals that I believe have rendered
[1:46:40]very significant and valuable service to this nation.
[1:46:42]Well, I think you, thank you, and I agree with that. And I think, first of all,
[1:46:46]I want to express to you how much I've admired your career. And I think that being an attorney
[1:46:52]general is probably the most difficult cabinet position. And one of the things that's required
[1:46:59]is that you give advice to the president and it may be advice he doesn't want to hear.
[1:47:04]And, you know, I remember March of 2004 when you were recovering from an illness and
[1:47:13]Mr. Comey was the acting attorney general. And the president's counsel came to your hospital
[1:47:22]room and wanted you to sign off on a security law that Mr. Comey, in his opinion, thought
[1:47:31]was not legal. And you said that was Mr. Comey's decision because he was the acting
[1:47:38]attorney general. Is that right? I believe that the written reports, you know,
[1:47:46]it's been in novels and other things. And I have no reason to contest what they've said.
[1:47:51]Right. I was in bed with a morphine pump in one hand. I was in,
[1:47:56]in what you call, what do they call this? Intensive care.
[1:48:02]But the bottom line here is that the president
[1:48:09]wanted an answer to permit him to proceed, but it was the opinion of Mr. Comey at that time
[1:48:16]that that was not legal. And this raises really what I think is the heart of what is so
[1:48:24]challenging to be attorney general. The president is the executive. You serve in his cabinet.
[1:48:31]But there are times when an attorney general has to say no. Is that correct?
[1:48:39]No attorney ever is a good attorney who doesn't tell his client the truth.
[1:48:45]Right. And it's important that the client
[1:48:48]trusts the attorney. And I appreciate that.
[1:48:51]And so I believe that the attorney general is sworn to the constitution of the United States.
[1:48:57]And not to an individual.
[1:48:59]The answer is to the president. He is sworn to the constitution.
[1:49:02]That's exactly right. Now, also, when the Enron case, which was an explosive case,
[1:49:08]came up, you had received contributions in your political career. They were totally
[1:49:13]and completely legal. But my understanding is because of that and the appearance of a
[1:49:18]potential conflict, you recused yourself from that case. Correct?
[1:49:23]I wish I remembered things, especially things you say are favorable about what I've done.
[1:49:30]It's over two decades ago that I did a lot of these things.
[1:49:33]What you did, Mr. Ashcroft, is what needs to be done.
[1:49:37]You said it. It's the constitution who's your client. It's the American people who
[1:49:41]are ultimately your client. And you have to give that direct and candid advice to the executive
[1:49:47]who is the president. So that's my question about Mr. Blanche.
[1:49:52]It's not his competence. It's not that he's got an ongoing relationship.
[1:49:56]But could you imagine serving as attorney general and having President Bush come to you
[1:50:04]and say, by the way, who paid you $9 million before you got to be attorney general to
[1:50:09]represent him in criminal actions? It's astonishing, right?
[1:50:15]But then he said, I've got an idea. We're going to sue the federal government for $10 billion
[1:50:23]and you're going to represent the IRS. And then why don't you work out a settlement where
[1:50:29]there's a $1.7 billion fund that I control. Would you see anything odd about that?
[1:50:41]I didn't have that situation. I didn't have a president that had been the subject of
[1:50:49]illegal disclosure of his activities, criminal disclosure.
[1:50:55]I want to get to your judgment on this.
[1:50:57]Well, yeah, but I swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
[1:51:01]That's a big challenge in an oath. And so I want to give my answer and not your answer,
[1:51:07]although I respect your question.
[1:51:09]No, but what I'm asking, you have incredible credibility, incredible character.
[1:51:16]Incredible credibility is kind of almost like Senate speech. Unbelievable believability.
[1:51:23]I was in this body myself and sat on that side of the dais.
[1:51:26]But well, you wouldn't have had that reputation if you were a senator.
[1:51:30]I mean, this is because you stood up to the president.
[1:51:32]Yes, I would. I was honest as a senator. I confess my faults from both eras.
[1:51:42]I'm just going to finish. Thank you for your indulgence. But number one,
[1:51:46]when you saw that there was the appearance of a conflict, you did not continue representing
[1:51:51]the government in the Enron case. Number two, when it came to a president's demand on
[1:51:57]vital concern to the president, a national security law, surveillance law, where it
[1:52:03]was the opinion of your department that it was illegal, you stood up to the president
[1:52:08]and didn't cave. I respect that and I believe that's the obligation and the
[1:52:13]burden of whoever serves as our attorney general. Mr. Blanche does not share that.
[1:52:20]I thank you for that respect. I hope when I grow up, I live to do things right.
[1:52:30]Mr. Ashcroft and to all the witnesses, thank you for being here.
[1:52:36]Mr. Ashcroft, I told the chairman or I told the chairman's staff I had one question,
[1:52:39]but like John Kennedy, it has two parts. You know, my first question, Mr. Ashcroft,
[1:52:47]I mentioned yesterday that I'm disturbed with the political physics going on today. If you think
[1:52:53]about the Obama administration, they had vindictive prosecutions. President Trump came in,
[1:52:59]more or less matched up on some of it. President Biden comes in, goes a little bit further,
[1:53:04]and this administration seems to me when we're doing 86-47, we're doing indictments for that,
[1:53:11]unless there's others, an active investigation, but that's a reason to bring Mr. Comey
[1:53:16]and do a perp walk because he arranged shells 86-47 on a beach in North Carolina. That's all we know
[1:53:22]right now. It just seems like, it seems to me like there's a continuing, you know, this
[1:53:27]exceptional nation we are. Americans always want to do better, you know, get bigger,
[1:53:31]higher the next time. Do you, am I wrong or am I perceiving a continued escalation of
[1:53:38]prosecutions that some of which really because of the way that they're being
[1:53:42]adjudicated, they're not being successful, it just seems to me that we're like shooting,
[1:53:47]you know, shoot ready aim on some prosecutions. And I'm not only talking about the current Trump
[1:53:52]administration, I'm going back to the Obama era. Do you agree with me that there seems to
[1:53:58]be a trend that each administration, we seem to be upping it of late? I'm not sure I could
[1:54:06]quantify any disenchantment. I believe that partisanship and-
[1:54:18]That's okay, Mr. Ashcroft, because I'm going to live up to my promise to yield back some time.
[1:54:22]My point, I'm a management consultant. I'm not an attorney, I'm not a prosecutor,
[1:54:25]I'm not a law enforcement officer, but I deal with facts and empirical data pretty well.
[1:54:30]I guarantee you, I can give you a list of cases and a list of investigations, a list of
[1:54:36]vindictive audits, and every year, it's like from 2008 to 2012 to 2016 to 2020 and 2024,
[1:54:49]one party is going to have to actually be an adult in the room and stop it,
[1:54:53]and our members here need to stop having situational ethics where they're only opposed
[1:54:58]to it when the other parties empower. But that was not my question. Yesterday,
[1:55:04]before the hearing, and Mr. Blanche, I have a positive predisposition to, just so that
[1:55:10]everybody knows, I have not made a final decision, but Mr. Blanche said very quickly
[1:55:16]yesterday that he would meet with the victims, the Epstein victims today if it
[1:55:23]could be arranged. Well, right now, the markup, if you all don't know procedure here,
[1:55:29]after this hearing is done today, next week we'll hold it over. The earliest possible
[1:55:33]markup would be two weeks from now. And because it seemed to me that Mr. Blanche
[1:55:39]was willing to say that he would meet with them and counsel, I understand the
[1:55:44]restriction that counsel has to be present, I expect that meeting to occur before I'm
[1:55:48]willing to vote out of this committee. And I'm trying to get to yes, but this is a very
[1:55:54]important part of getting to yes. There should not be any reason why, based on what Mr. Blanche
[1:56:01]said yesterday, if he said that he would do it today, then he can certainly do it over
[1:56:05]the next two weeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back. Talking about what you said, what
[1:56:11]advice or how political Attorney General offices, I remember that Holder said he was a
[1:56:18]wingman for President Obama. That's exactly right, Mr. Chair. And anybody who comes up here and
[1:56:25]steps up on their on their pulpit, and then all of a sudden I can go back and see of record
[1:56:31]the absolute silence of Democrats when Biden and Obama did the same thing. I'd love to see
[1:56:36]a Democrat who has taken the position that I have with an administration that shares my jersey,
[1:56:42]because that's the only way this nonsense stops. Senator Schiff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
[1:56:50]Adler, thank you for being here and for your many years of service. Ms. O'Hare, likewise,
[1:56:55]thank you for your courage at the Justice Department and for your willingness to speak out.
[1:57:00]Ms. Boss, I'm just heartbroken for your loss and very much appreciate your advocacy.
[1:57:06]And Ms. Bensky, thank you for your willingness to speak out and for all the Epstein victims
[1:57:11]that are here. I'm glad the Attorney General finally acknowledged that he could meet with you.
[1:57:16]I was perplexed when he said somehow that he was prohibited. That's simply not the law.
[1:57:21]And I hope that meeting takes place. Mr. Ashcroft, thank you for your service.
[1:57:27]I wanted to ask you about some remarks the Attorney General made when he said
[1:57:35]that he thought the President, he was asked about the President targeting his political
[1:57:38]opponents and enemies for prosecution. And I don't subscribe to what I think is a false equivalence.
[1:57:46]We've never seen a President behave this way, where he openly and privately calls on
[1:57:54]the Attorney General to prosecute his enemies. And I want to ask you about that, Mr. Ashcroft,
[1:58:00]because Mr. Blanche has said that he believes the President has both the right and the duty
[1:58:05]to use the Justice Department to go after his enemies. Do you subscribe to that view?
[1:58:14]Thank you, Senator. I believe that the Attorney General of the United States has the right and
[1:58:19]responsibility to enforce the law uniformly. And if the law has been broken by the President's
[1:58:24]enemies, he has a duty. They do not become exempt from following the law merely by their
[1:58:32]enmity to the President of the United States. As a matter of fact, the people who break the
[1:58:37]law are in enmity with the people of the United States whose expression of what is the law has
[1:58:43]been developed in this body and the Congress of the United States. So we used to call people
[1:58:49]who break the law public enemies. So my view is that whether a person has been a political
[1:58:56]supporter or not of the President of the United States is not the determining factor
[1:59:01]regarding prosecution. It's whether a person has violated the law and in enforcing the law
[1:59:07]the Attorney General is carrying out the will expressed in the Congress.
[1:59:11]But Mr. Attorney General, you realize having sat here my time is very limited.
[1:59:15]That really isn't my question. My question is, do you think it is appropriate
[1:59:20]for the President to call on the Attorney General to prosecute one of his enemies
[1:59:25]and acting on that request the President for the Attorney General to do so?
[1:59:30]The President of the United States is the executive branch of the United States
[1:59:36]whose charge it is to enforce the laws of the United States.
[1:59:41]When the President of the United States asks that the laws be enforced,
[1:59:45]I don't see that as consistent with his duties or responsibilities.
[1:59:49]If the laws were to be enforced differentially, which is one of the things that scares me about
[1:59:54]as many laws as we have, someone said in order to run a police state you only have
[1:59:59]to have one policeman, but if you have enough laws you can go find something wrong with anybody
[2:00:04]you want. So the President, I believe, his job is to have an administration which calls for
[2:00:12]the enforcement of the laws of the United States without regard
[2:00:17]to the political preferences of the people who are perpetrators or accused individuals.
[2:00:22]I'm not sure that I understand your answer, except you seem to accept
[2:00:27]the premise that it is okay now for a President to call the Attorney General and ask him to
[2:00:32]prosecute his enemies. You don't seem to have a problem with that. If you do have a problem
[2:00:35]with that, please say so. I believe the President needs to be an advocate of strong
[2:00:41]law enforcement and that includes enemies of his and if an enemy of the President
[2:00:50]goes out and conducts a violent crime, it's nothing wrong with the President calling the
[2:00:55]Attorney General and saying, I hope you do something about this violent crime.
[2:00:59]And if the President's enemy takes a photo of seashells, you think it's appropriate
[2:01:05]to prosecute them? If Senators make a video stating the plain law and Constitution
[2:01:10]that you can disobey an illegal order, you think it's okay for the President or others
[2:01:16]to call them to be prosecuted? I don't think so. I don't think so. And I don't think you
[2:01:22]would have done that as Attorney General. I hope you wouldn't have. If you would have,
[2:01:26]you were not the Attorney General. I thought you were. I don't think it's appropriate for
[2:01:30]this Attorney General or any other. And I don't remember seeing, notwithstanding the
[2:01:35]false equivalents I hear expressed so many times from my colleagues in this committee,
[2:01:39]I don't remember any Democratic President calling the Attorney General and saying,
[2:01:45]you need to prosecute him, you need to prosecute her, and you need to prosecute them,
[2:01:49]and you need to go after this organization. We have never seen that before, or anything like it.
[2:01:54]Anything like it. And generic statements, oh, they all do it, is simply not the case.
[2:02:01]And by making that argument, it just further erodes the wall of independence that I'm sure
[2:02:08]Attorney General you remember after Watergate, when because of the abuses of President Nixon,
[2:02:13]there was an effort to make the Justice Department independent from the White House,
[2:02:18]not completely independent in the sense that the President couldn't set general priorities.
[2:02:23]I want you to emphasize these cases and these cases, whether it's immigration cases
[2:02:28]or drug cases, that was always appropriate. But what has never been appropriate,
[2:02:34]and particularly so after Watergate, was for the Attorney General of the United States to
[2:02:38]break that wall and call on his Attorney General to prosecute his enemies, and I would say
[2:02:44]even without any basis to do so, and this Justice Department has been willing to do so,
[2:02:52]and has gone before grand juries, and we have never, I think, seen the likes of this either
[2:02:56]in these high-profile cases where the grand jurors, in some cases to a person,
[2:03:02]have refused an indictment. How often did you, have that happened to you Mr. Turner,
[2:03:07]last question I'll ask you, how often, Mr. Turner General, did you seek an indictment
[2:03:11]as a prosecutor and have not a single grand juror vote to indict? Did that ever happen to you?
[2:03:18]I don't know. I just don't know. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:03:22]Senator Britt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:03:28]Appreciate all of you being here today, witnesses taking your time to be in front of us.
[2:03:34]Before I start, I want to say thank you to Attorney General Ascroft for being here today
[2:03:39]in your service to our country, both as Attorney General and as a United States Senator,
[2:03:45]and also thank you for your kind words about Senator Graham. I really appreciate it.
[2:03:54]Mrs. Boss, thank you for sharing your story, reliving the worst day in your life,
[2:04:04]being willing to tell your story so that people hear it.
[2:04:09]Really appreciate it and I'm so sorry for your loss. We're going to talk a little bit in a second
[2:04:16]about people needing to meet with survivors, which I completely agree with, and victims.
[2:04:25]Let me ask you a question. Do you think that when someone is killed at the hands of
[2:04:34]an illegal alien that their representation in Congress, Senator,
[2:04:40]Congressmen, should meet with that family? Absolutely. Of course. It's my understanding
[2:04:50]that there are many angel families that cannot get meetings with their senators.
[2:04:55]Have you heard that? Absolutely. It happens all the time. As a matter of fact, the lovely
[2:05:02]and kind words from Senator Durbin, I am his constituent. This is the first time I've ever
[2:05:09]spoken with him. I haven't spoken with him. He spoke to me. Well, I hope and I'm sure that
[2:05:17]I hope I heard actually the ranking member yesterday talk about the need for the Attorney
[2:05:22]General to meet with victims, which I support and I certainly am hopeful that he will and
[2:05:30]others will meet with you. Yes. So, Sheridan Gorman and other names need to be said and I
[2:05:43]think the accountability that we have in this room for other people, we should be able to have
[2:05:49]it for this body as well. So, I certainly hope that you get your face-to-face meeting
[2:05:54]that you deserve. I would hope so. We've had several
[2:05:58]um laws introduced, legislation introduced in this last session that have been completely ignored
[2:06:06]and there hasn't been any way to really get in and talk to anybody, especially those who
[2:06:12]are opposed to those legislations for whatever reason. Well, thank you so much for elevating
[2:06:18]your voice. Ms. Bezinski, am I saying that right? It's Bezinski, yeah. Okay. Gosh,
[2:06:27]I'm gonna have to try. I am so sorry for everything that you've been through and thank
[2:06:32]you for your courage for being here today and being able to elevate your voice. I completely
[2:06:39]support your quest to be able to be heard to obviously for victims to be protected and for
[2:06:46]us to pursue every lead possible and you know, I do believe after my conversations
[2:06:54]with the Assistant Attorney General that he is going to pursue those. Let me ask you this,
[2:07:00]were you asked in the previous administration, did you ever have an opportunity to sit down
[2:07:05]with the then Attorney General Merrick Garland? We did not but there are active investigations
[2:07:11]going on because of Gillian Maxwell's hearing. So, but did you ever have a face-to-face with
[2:07:16]him? No. No. Did you all request a face-to-face? This was before a time that I was comfortable
[2:07:25]coming forward. It was just this last September that a group of us felt like we had met each
[2:07:30]other and a huge part of this has been finding the collective voice of a sisterhood
[2:07:36]and understanding that we weren't isolated in these experiences. Absolutely and let me ask
[2:07:40]you this, did you, was there ever, because I know that my colleague, Senator Blackburn,
[2:07:46]really wanted to make sure that you all had an opportunity to tell your story. Are you aware of
[2:07:52]any Senate hearings that were held under the previous administration that tried to
[2:08:00]I don't personally have that information because again, it just came forward really in September.
[2:08:04]Well, thank you for coming forward. Thank you. I mean, thank you so much.
[2:08:10]Mrs. Oyer, obviously, do we have, are you cutting people off right on time today?
[2:08:20]What? Are you cutting people off right on time today or people getting to go way over?
[2:08:24]I've been too liberal but go ahead. Go ahead and ask one more question.
[2:08:29]Yes, let me ask one more question please, sir. I appreciate it. After you were fired from DOJ,
[2:08:36]you had an independent media company and a substack platform and you had the, you know,
[2:08:42]lawyer aura brand name and the hoodies that said, hardwired to stand up to bullies.
[2:08:50]I'm wondering, you know, it's my understanding that as a pardoned attorney during the Biden
[2:08:56]administration, you recommended actual commutations for Daniel Troyer and Ricardo Sanchez Jr. who
[2:09:03]were sentenced to death in 2009 after executing a family of four on the side of a highway. Is that
[2:09:09]true? Ma'am, I think you were not in the room when several of your colleagues asked me about
[2:09:15]those. Yeah, but this is my turn to ask a question. So is that true? What I said then remains,
[2:09:20]which is that I'm not able to talk about the clemency advice that I provided to the White
[2:09:24]House. Okay, well the victims included a four-year-old and a three-year-old boy who died
[2:09:30]while cradled in the arms of their mother who was trying to shield them.
[2:09:35]Those two little boys were shot 10 times and their mother was shot 11 times and their father
[2:09:39]was shot five times. So I appreciate the grace on getting to go over, but that doesn't sound
[2:09:46]like to me that you stand up to bullies. It sounds like to me you stand with them. Thank you.
[2:09:51]Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
[2:09:58]I want to thank all of you for being here. This day of the hearings often gets less attention,
[2:10:06]but it is very important to us and you are performing a very important service.
[2:10:13]I particularly want to thank Ms. Bensky and Ms. Boss for sharing your stories and
[2:10:21]reliving a lot of the pain that you have been through. Ms. Bensky, I don't know whether you
[2:10:29]were here yesterday when I asked Acting Attorney General Blanche to apologize,
[2:10:39]and I'd just be interested in your reaction to his response.
[2:10:43]Yeah, I think it was the most that we've gotten from him, and that was a moment where there
[2:10:48]was a touch of humanity to say that we do understand that there was, in fact, failure here
[2:10:54]because he's been on the record multiple times saying that nothing was mishandled.
[2:10:58]And as a survivor who literally saw nude images of friends and had my own information
[2:11:07]exposed all over the place, to tell the world that this had not been mishandled
[2:11:15]was just so absolutely egregious. Anybody from here to Mars, no matter what political
[2:11:21]affiliation you're with, can see that your government should not be sending out nude photos
[2:11:26]of you, obviously. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Very well said. Let me ask you a general
[2:11:34]question, and you don't have to give me an exhaustive answer today, and I know there
[2:11:43]are others in the room who may want to answer this question as well, but what should we demand
[2:11:48]of the Department of Justice to make things right, to make things better? Yeah, we've
[2:11:56]always just been looking for accountability and for this case to be handled correctly,
[2:12:00]because even from the very start of this case, we have not seen it handled the way
[2:12:06]anybody would normally prosecute something. So we are looking to get to the bottom of why
[2:12:12]our perpetrators were never held to account. How does the largest sex trafficking ring in this
[2:12:18]country exist when only two people have been found even remotely? I mean, Depstein's dead,
[2:12:25]but Maxwell is the only one who has been held to any sort of account, and she's in a lower
[2:12:31]security penitentiary at this point. So I think we are owed answers and we are owed justice for
[2:12:39]us. We get that question a lot of what does justice look like? I think, yes, the culture
[2:12:43]shift is part of it, but really having your government stand up for you and stand up for
[2:12:48]what's right, and there's a chilling effect that it sends to survivors everywhere when
[2:12:55]their government is outing their personal information. Other survivors are not going
[2:12:59]to want to come forward. And so we need to make sure that we are getting all the information
[2:13:05]with these cases. So I think we really just hope that the government will take it seriously
[2:13:11]and start investigations. Accountability. Accountability, always. And I think a working
[2:13:18]hypothesis here is that accountability is difficult when rich and powerful people
[2:13:24]are potentially- It's always been the vulnerable versus power for this case,
[2:13:29]for most sex trafficking cases, or all sex trafficking cases, really. And it is about
[2:13:34]how the powerful consistently exploit the vulnerable, and that is what we see a lot.
[2:13:40]I mean, I have a six-year-old son and I teach him that accountability matters every single
[2:13:44]day, and I hold him to account. Why can't we hold our government to account? Well, I will
[2:13:50]just say your voice and face has been a very powerful antidote to the wealth and power that
[2:14:02]may be brought to bear here, and I hope that this forum will encourage you and others
[2:14:07]to come forward, as you've done so courageously. Thank you so much. Yeah,
[2:14:11]I do also want to mention that Virginia Jeffrey has been monumental in all of this,
[2:14:16]and I think it would be unfair to not name her because her deposition holds the key to
[2:14:21]quite a few things. So if you started her deposition, you can start really investigating.
[2:14:27]Thank you. Ms. Oyer, I want to ask you about the pardon that I mentioned yesterday. I asked
[2:14:38]Todd Blanche about it. David Gentile sentenced to seven years for a multimillion-dollar fraud
[2:14:46]scheme that involved a seven-year sentence. He served 12 days of it before he was pardoned.
[2:14:58]He boasted to his fellow inmates that he was going to pay $2.5 million
[2:15:03]to someone to get him out. Father Frank Mann told one of his parishioners that
[2:15:14]he had talked to President Trump to get David Gentile out of prison. These are facts that
[2:15:21]have been publicly reported. The investigation into the potential impropriety of this pardon
[2:15:29]was shut down, allegedly, by high officials in the Department of Justice talking to the
[2:15:38]U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, Joe Nassella. I know you're not familiar
[2:15:43]with the facts. I'm not going to ask you whether you believe that that reporting is true.
[2:15:52]Mr. Blanche never denied it. He basically said, well, it was a leak. Sometimes leaks
[2:15:58]actually involve truthful information. But the point that I think is lost here
[2:16:04]is that that pardon involved $16 million in forfeiture to innocent victims,
[2:16:14]many of them retirees, who were depending on that money to survive. And he will no longer
[2:16:21]be required to do restitution. So his ill-gotten gains, some of which he may have used to
[2:16:31]pay for his clemency, so to speak, are not going to go back to the people
[2:16:40]who were cheated, his victim, as a result of that pardon and clemency.
[2:16:47]Uh, so I guess my question to you with this introduction is essentially,
[2:16:56]are victims and survivors often re-victimized by pardons that are unjust or unfair to them?
[2:17:06]And shouldn't we have them given a voice and recognize the Constitution gives the president
[2:17:15]unlimited authority? And it's one of those powers that's unchecked, really. But isn't there
[2:17:22]a need to give the victims a voice in this process? Yes, Senator, the millions of dollars
[2:17:28]that Mr. Gentile stole from his investors, unfortunately, are a drop in the bucket of the
[2:17:33]restitution that victims have been deprived of as a result of President Trump's pardons.
[2:17:38]He has forgiven over a billion dollars in restitution that is owed to victims of fraud,
[2:17:44]as well as money that is owed to taxpayers by people who committed white collar crimes
[2:17:48]and who have served, in many cases, none of their sentence and repaid none of their money.
[2:17:53]That is not consistent with the regulations that the Justice Department has in place for
[2:17:57]evaluating applications for pardons. The Justice Department historically has looked to
[2:18:02]see that people have repaid their debts before recommending clemency, but this president
[2:18:07]is using clemency in a strategic, transactional way to forgive huge amounts of debts owed to
[2:18:14]taxpayers and crime victims. Senator Derby?
[2:18:18]Mr. Chairman, in closing here, I would like to make a couple points. Please do.
[2:18:24]First, I understand that the senator from Alabama mentioned my name while I had stepped
[2:18:29]out. Miss Boss, anxious to meet with you. I hope we can do it soon, maybe even right after
[2:18:36]this, because I know it was a hardship for you to make this journey here, testify
[2:18:42]from Illinois, and I don't want you to have to wait to see me. I want to meet with you now,
[2:18:49]and we can talk as soon as this meeting adjourns, if it's okay with you,
[2:18:53]if it fits in your schedule. Let me say a word about Ms. Sawyer. I'm glad that
[2:19:00]the senator from New Jersey said what he did about you.
[2:19:05]I believe the fact of the matter is that most of the things that were
[2:19:10]brought up today in this hearing about your activity related to a decision by the Biden
[2:19:16]administration as they were leaving office to turn death penalty convictions into life imprisonment
[2:19:26]instead. Is that correct? That's right, sir.
[2:19:32]That reflects, I'll say this, you don't have to comment on this,
[2:19:36]I believe that reflects President Joe Biden's opposition to the death penalty. I share that
[2:19:43]opposition. There are people in the audience who agree with me and some who vehemently disagree
[2:19:48]with me, but America is divided in this issue. I didn't have this position my entire political
[2:19:55]career, but toward the end of it I've come to the conclusion, as Justice Blackmun did
[2:19:59]at the end of his conclusion of serving on the Supreme Court, that he no longer wants to tinker
[2:20:04]with the machinery of death. The fact of the matter is there are clear cases where one can
[2:20:10]argue a death penalty and there are cases which we have found were wrongly decided and
[2:20:15]people faced a death penalty or worse until evidence and other things were discovered
[2:20:21]at the end. That is my position. That was Joe Biden's position. That's why the cases
[2:20:27]which were brought up today are so serious and I believe that you were doing your job
[2:20:34]as a pardon attorney to advise him as to his decision, but is it not true that the final
[2:20:40]decision on the disposition of these inmates was the decision of the President of the United
[2:20:46]States? That's absolutely correct, Senator. So if you want to take exception to Joe Biden
[2:20:52]and his position, be my guest, but to blame you for those I think goes beyond your responsibility
[2:20:59]as pardon attorney and I would just say I know the controversy behind this issue,
[2:21:05]but I feel that that's what led him to his conclusion. Ms. Binsky, thank you
[2:21:11]for bringing your friends with you today. It is great to see them. I hope that what you
[2:21:17]heard from Senator Tillis is a promising possibility that he said he would not,
[2:21:23]I hope I'm saying this correctly, he wouldn't vote to confirm this nomination until there's
[2:21:30]been an actual meeting. That would be a dramatic work of progress for us to reach that point
[2:21:36]and because you have the courage to stand up, not only you, but your friends, we have
[2:21:42]achieved that I believe. I hope that's the fact. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:21:47]Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here today and for traveling the long distances some
[2:21:55]of you have had to go. We're grateful that you did it. For all the members of this committee,
[2:22:01]written questions to these witnesses here are due on Wednesday, July 22,
[2:22:09]this year at 5 p.m. The hearing is adjourned.
[2:22:17]Thank you.