Blanche panicked over blowback fears after firing influential DOJ attorney: insiders

Todd Blanche reacted with alarm after firing the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, fearing the timing would look like retaliation over actor Mel Gibson, according to a report from PunchUp’s Tom Latchem.Blanche, who was deputy attorney general at the time and has since taken over the department after the firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi, dismissed pardon attorney Liz Oyer in March 2025 as part of a wider removal of career DOJ officials. Multiple sources told PunchUp that Blanche did so without knowing Oyer had been in a private disagreement with one of his aides over whether Gibson should have his gun rights restored.Gibson, 70, lost those rights after pleading no contest to misdemeanor battery involving his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva in 2011.Oyer has said then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul Perkins told her “to add Gibson to a shortlist for firearms rights restoration” and that Gibson’s relationship with Donald Trump should...