Todd Blanche, Once Trump's Defense Lawyer, Interviews Ghislaine Maxwell Over Two Days in Tallahassee

On July 24 and 25, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche personally interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, at the U.S. attorney's office in Tallahassee, Florida. The first session ran about six hours. Blanche, previously President Trump's personal defense attorney and now the department's second-ranking official, said Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed him to reach out and that "justice demands courage"; sources told ABC News that Maxwell's side initiated the contact. Her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said she answered every question. The interviews came eight days after the department fired Maurene Comey, who had led Maxwell's prosecution, and days after the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Maxwell for a deposition.

Former federal prosecutors called the arrangement unorthodox: a deputy attorney general conducting a witness interview instead of line prosecutors who knew the file; the reported absence of an FBI agent to take notes, since a prosecutor cannot both write the report and be a witness; and reliance on a witness with obvious incentive to seek relief from a 20-year sentence. Former DOJ pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer said Maxwell "is likely also desperate to get out."

The Justice Department released transcripts the following month. Maxwell was moved to a lower-security federal prison camp on August 1, 2025.