HE LIES Epstein survivor and fired DOJ attorney CONFRONT Todd Blanche in confirmation hearing

After months of radio silence from the Department of Justice amid their mishandling of the release of the Epstein files, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse are finally, finally, getting their opportunity to meet with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and it's happening later this hour. The meeting comes after this powerful testimony from Epstein survivor and friend of this program, Danny Bensky. It comes on the second day of Todd Blanche's confirmation hearings. Watch. We may look like grown adults when you see us now, but we were children, young girls at the time of our abuse. These are the photos of when our innocence, dreams, and lives were stolen. Please take these faces in as you think of us as your own family, daughters, nieces, sisters. Now look at our faces and remember the women and families of who the DOJ re-victimized. Todd Blanche has been at the helm of the release of nude images of survivors, the outing of Jane Doe's, and the exposure of more than 100 victims identifying information and documents describing horrific acts of abuse, including my own. Instead of treating this release as its own violation and holding the man who led it accountable, you have a decision on whether you place him in the highest law enforcement position in this country. Now, this meeting that Danny and other survivors are having with Todd Blanche is only coming because Republican Tom Tillis made it a condition for arriving at yes to confirm Todd Blanche. It's not like Todd Blanche woke up and said, maybe I should listen to the survivors of abuse. No, this is to get a vote, but it is happening. But important to note that Todd Blanche easily could have met with survivors months ago or years ago at this point, two years ago when he took the job, when they requested to meet with him. Another flashpoint at Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing today was testimony about the damage that Todd Blanche has already done to the Department of Justice because of the purge of thousands of career employees that he is responsible for, that he's even publicly bragged about. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sought to highlight how these firings should be disqualifying for anyone seeking to leave the department. They called on former DOJ pardon attorney, Liz Boyer, someone we turn to, to understand what's happening inside the department. Democrats today wanted her to testify about why she says she was fired by Todd Blanche and explain the lengths he and his office went to to keep her quiet about it. Two days after Mr. Blanche was confirmed as deputy attorney general, he fired me from my position as the department's career pardon attorney. I declined to rubber stamp a political favor for a friend of the president and it cost me my job. Mr. Blanche's office had asked me to recommend restoring the gun ownership rights of a convicted domestic abuser. I raised concerns about public safety, but Mr. Blanche's staff pressured me to go along anyway. I did not, but because this particular domestic abuser had a personal relationship with the president, Mr. Blanche's staff asked me to set aside my concerns. When I wouldn't, Mr. Blanche fired me within hours. He then took extraordinary measures to silence me. He sent U.S. marshals to my home in an effort to prevent me from speaking with members of Congress. Seems like a pretty clear and obvious sequence of events. Declined to do a favor for Donald Trump's friend. Lose your job at the hand of Todd Blanche. But in Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing yesterday, he tried to assert that Liz Hoyer's firing had nothing to do with her declining his request to restore gun rights to Donald Trump's friend, the actor Mel Gibson, and said that he in fact tried to give her a heads up that U.S. marshals were heading to her house. Here's Liz Hoyer rebuking those claims from Todd Blanche about her firing and warning the Senate and the public that putting Todd Blanche in charge of the Department of Justice is a threat to the country. I was shocked to hear Mr. Blanche's testimony about this yesterday. What he said about my firing is provably false. His claim that it had nothing to do with the concerns I raised is contradicted by documents and evidence. His claim that he tried to call me before sending marshals to my home is flat out false. His claim that it is normal for DOJ to use armed law enforcement officers to deliver mail to the homes of its former employees is preposterous. The casual lies that Mr. Blanche tells, even while sitting in this chair testifying to this committee, are emblematic of a much larger problem. To the American public, it looks like Mr. Blanche is running DOJ as Donald Trump's personal law firm. Americans across the political spectrum rely on DOJ to keep us safe and free. Mr. Blanche has shown that he is willing to put all of that at risk to serve a political agenda. I beg the members of this committee to think about what this is costing our country. Please do not degrade our justice system further by promoting Mr. Blanche. The destruction Todd Blanche has already wrought at the Department of Justice, which he's seeking to lead, is where we start today. Former Department of Justice pardon attorney Liz Sawyer joins us. She is now the host of the podcast, Is This Really Legal? And with me for the hour, senior political analyst, host of the Runaway Country podcast, author of the subsect How the Hell with Alex Wagner, Alex Wagner joins us. Liz, your testimony was extraordinary and courageous. Just take me through the experience. I was really nervous to go up there and testify, Nicole, because I don't know what the Justice Department is capable of under Todd Blanche's leadership. They've put me through the wringer once in connection with my firing. When I spoke out about my firing, they sent armed law enforcement officers to my home. Mr. Blanche has demonstrated that he has a very casual relationship with the truth. He lies when convenient to get what he wants. And so I have this fear of what shoe might drop next, what he might try to do to me next. It seems like he coordinated with some of the Republican members of the panel to try to attack my credibility in the hearing. And that was really the focus of all the questions I got today, which was surprising. I didn't get any questions from the Republican members of the committee about Mr. Blanche. I got a lot of questions about myself in an effort, I think, to suggest that I'm not a credible witness because they really don't have any response on the facts. They don't have any way to dispute any of the things that I testified about. So, you know, Mr. Blanche, I think, just proved himself in the hearing to be somebody that he really, he really desperately wants this job and he will say what is necessary to get it. And I felt like it was my duty to go up there on the Hill today and share my own experience and tell the truth. I felt like that was my duty to my fellow citizens, to the many people in this country who care about the Justice Department and who care about our future. And, you know, it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was very stressful. I'm very tired, but I'm glad I did it. I felt like it was the right thing to do. Are you more afraid now than before you testified against Todd Blanche? Yes. He's, you know, at this point, one of the most powerful people in the country, and he stands to get potentially even more powerful if he's confirmed. And I'm well aware that I've sort of pitted myself against as an opponent of this incredibly powerful man who has proven that he is vindictive and lies. And, you know, I just don't know what he's capable of, and it is genuinely very scary. But I'm more scared of what his leadership will do to our justice system. We all rely on a justice system that is fair and impartial to protect our civil rights, to keep us safe. And Mr. Blanche is a real threat to that. So the risk of testifying against him, in my mind, you know, it was a no-brainer. It was worth taking. Liz, do you ever wonder how you ended up fighting this fight, not alone, but without some of the former leaders of the Department of Justice, people like Merrick Garland or Lisa Monaco or leaders of the FBI, Christopher Wray, under whom all of you served and worked and who, even if they couldn't keep Todd Blanche from harassing you or investigating you, they could testify to the character of the workforce of the men and women of the Department of Justice? Yeah, I think it's sort of a mixed bag because there is a segment of our country that associates Merrick Garland and other leaders of the Justice Department under Biden with Biden's leadership, and there are people who are unhappy with Biden's leadership. And my goal in speaking out, I was not a political appointee. I wasn't appointed by President Biden. I didn't work for him, didn't work for any president. I worked for the American people, and I was non-political. And my goal in speaking out, and, you know, I think the goal that other non-political Justice Department employees have is to really try to amplify that the Justice Department is not a political place. Almost all of its work is non-political. It benefits everyone, regardless of your partisan political affiliation. And I don't know that it would be helpful to have people like Merrick Garland sort of leading the conversation on that. I don't have, you know, the same name recognition and platform as someone like that, but I feel like my voice has a certain credibility because I'm non-partisan. I do hope that more non-partisan career employees of the Justice Department will join this conversation to really try to demonstrate to the American people that DOJ is not meant to be political. Its work matters to all of us, regardless of partisan politics, and we cannot have someone like Todd Blanche in charge of the powers of the Justice Department.