Todd Blanche’s New Grip on the Federal Prison System
The Bulwark · C · trust 42/100
Critics worry a little-noticed policy shift could let the attorney general reward allies, punish enemies, and sideline longstanding Bureau of Prisons processes.
Matteson Epstein July 30 Upgrade to listen 12 minutes 57 18 (Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/ The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock) ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL TODD BLANCHE was grilled during his confirmation hearing over the controversial transfer of convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower-security prison last year—a move that took place just one week after Blanche met with Maxwell to discuss her associations with Jeffrey Epstein.
In a heated exchange with Blanche, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) argued the transfer “seems clearly like a reward” after Maxwell appeared to distance President Donald Trump from Epstein’s criminal activities during her interview with the then-deputy attorney general.
At her new facility—dubbed “ Club Fed ”—Maxwell reportedly has a service puppy, specialized workout hours, and customized meals delivered directly to her housing unit. She is also the only one of more than 20,000 current federal sex offenders to have been approved for placement in such a federal minimum-security prison camp, according to Maureen Baird and Janet Perdue, former senior Bureau of Prisons officials with sixty-two years’ combined experience (who now run the firm Baird Perdue & Associates Prison Consultants).
Several of the lawmakers and experts whom I spoke to for this article believe Maxwell’s move was a top-down directive from Department of Justice leadership rather than a bottom-up Bureau of Prisons decision. “Todd Blanche had just interviewed Maxwell for several hours before this transfer occurred, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots,” Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) told me. Even so, she acknowledged that no evidence has emerged—including during his confirmation hearings—that Blanche personally directed Maxwell’s transfer.
Some critics say Blanche’s own description of his role only heightens concerns that he was inappropriately involved in Maxwell’s transfer. Asked about Maxwell during a December appearance on Meet the Press , Blanche said that he is “responsible for the Bureau of Prisons” and that “every decision” made by the BOP “lands on my desk to the extent it needs to.”
But certain experts and members of Congress say Maxwell’s transfer is just the tip of the iceberg: the most visible example of a broader policy change that centralizes—and, in some cases, politicizes—federal prison placement authority under the attorney general. They warn that the policy could be used not only to reward allies of the administration, as they argue happened with Maxwell, but also potentially to punish its perceived enemies. And given the Justice Department’s recent record investigating political adversaries, they say the policy deserves a hard look. Here’s why.
The Bureau of Prisons , a component of the Justice Department, has traditionally handled prison placement decisions. It has a 116-page manual of guidelines detailing the degree of supervision different prisoners require.
As Booker observed in Blanche’s hearing two weeks ago, BOP regulations generally prohibit housing convicted sex offenders like Maxwell in minimum-security facilities. Baird, who helped develop BOP’s prison classification policies in the 1990s, told me these standards were set precisely to ensure “an individual convicted of a sex crime was housed in at least a low-security prison and never at a minimum-security prison camp” because “sex offenders pose a risk to the community.”
A BOP spokesperson disputed that a transfer of this kind is unprecedented but could not provide statistics or examples to support the claim.
At his confirmation hearing, Blanche said Maxwell was moved because of concerns about her physical safety in prison. Booker responded that, if safety were truly the issue, BOP’s standard response would be to send her to protective custody or another low-security prison—not to reassign her to a minimum-security camp.
On June 17, BOP tweeted a public statement claiming that the decision to transfer Maxwell had been made “independently by BOP,” with “no preference, special treatment, or political influence” playing any role. A BOP spokesperson told me the transfer was based on the “general observation” that lower-security prisons have fewer violent incidents but could not identify any specific security measures making her new prison safer.
DEMOCRATS AND LEGAL OBSERVERS unconvinced of the BOP’s independence point to a May 6 BOP policy change , quietly issued under Blanche’s supervision as acting attorney general, that they say gives the attorney general carte blanche over federal prison placement. They contend that, by allowing the attorney general (in unspecified circumstances) to designate an inmate’s place of imprisonment, the policy shifts prison placement authority from the BOP’s traditional role and established processes . 1 The policy change was made with no public announcement. 2
The revision also lets the BOP facilitate communication between prisoners and the Office of the Attorney General. Rep. Raskin (D-Md.) told me in a phone interview this specific provision appears both backward- and forward-looking—as if it were designed to retroactively “normalize the extraordinary nature of Blanche’s contact with Ghislaine Maxwell” while simultaneously enabling BOP to facilitate similar interactions between future attorneys general and federal prisoners.
But to Raskin, the policy’s real stakes are a larger institutional usurpation. “Maxwell is just a small window into the kind of total power the president wants to exercise over the penal system,” he said.
Raskin joined Rep. Ross and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in a June letter to the BOP director arguing that the policy change marked “a significant departure” from its longstanding inmate classification framework. “They cannot explain how this improves the process…
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