Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, was pressed at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday about his office’s role in closing an early-stage investigation into the circumstances of a clemency grant President Trump issued to a convicted fraudster.
The investigation had begun examining whether improper payments were made to help facilitate the commutation awarded to David Gentile, a private equity executive who was convicted in a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of mostly mom-and-pop investors, some of whom lost their retirement savings.
But an official in Mr. Blanche’s office had expressed concern to the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, whose office had initiated the investigation. The inquiry was then terminated, The New York Times reported last month.
“There is a need for the inspector general to look into the investigation that was apparently, according to these articles and other information, stopped as a result of your intervention,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, told Mr. Blanche at the hearing.
Mr. Blanche, who is seeking to become the attorney general on a permanent basis, refused to answer questions from Mr. Blumenthal about the commutation or the investigation into what led to it.
While he declined to even acknowledge that there was an investigation, Mr. Blanche also contended that the Times article was the subject of leaks, and might have contained “falsehoods.”
He did not identify inaccuracies, and the Justice Department has not challenged the report.
“You’re asking me questions about a news article, the source of which was apparently leaks,” he said. “We cannot comment on even the existence of investigations.”
But in other settings — including on podcasts with right-wing media figures — Mr. Blanche has expansively discussed pending investigations into Mr. Trump’s political adversaries.
It was not the first time Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Blanche had clashed about the investigation into the Gentile clemency.
Mr. Blanche had declined to discuss it during a private meeting with Mr. Blumenthal last month, citing statutory prohibitions on disclosures about investigations, according to a follow-up letter from the senator.
In the letter, Mr. Blumenthal rejected Mr. Blanche’s explanation, writing that “information regarding political interference in the case is not statutorily protected.”
Mr. Blumenthal contended in the letter that the commutation of Mr. Gentile was “one of the most extreme examples of how the president’s disregard for the safeguards that historically govern the pardon process has resulted in great harm to victims, through both the loss of financial restitution and the extraordinary disrespect of seeing the president champion unrepentant criminals.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Blanche confirmed that his office received the letter, but declined to comment on it.
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