DOJ whistleblower urges Senate to probe whether Todd Blanche dodged records laws

A Department of Justice whistleblower is pressing the Senate to investigate Trump's nominee for Attorney General.

In a Wednesday piece, fired DOJ attorney Liz Oyer shared a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee where she sounded the alarm about absent records related to her termination. She urged the Senate to probe Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is waiting for confirmation to take the role full-time.

"I respectfully suggest that this Committee should probe whether Mr. Blanche has complied with the Federal Records Act or is using forms of communication that evade oversight," Oyer wrote in a letter that detailed how she can't find documents she says should exist per federal law.

Oyer was fired after refusing to skip a vetting process to reinstate actor Mel Gibson's right to own a gun, which was stripped after his domestic violence conviction. She sought documents related to her firing through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that is now in litigation, but she warned the Senate committee that the DOJ denied that they exist.

"The Department has claimed that Mr. Blanche's office has no documents—none—related to my firing despite the fact that Mr. Blanche himself dismissed me," Oyer wrote. "DOJ FOIA staff claim that they searched Mr. Blanche's files and found nothing—not a single page. They didn't even find the memo he signed firing me in his files."

She wrote, "This raises serious questions about what channels of communications Mr. Blanche is using to conduct official DOJ business; where (or whether) he is preserving records required by federal law; and whether he is telling the truth about documents in his possession, custody or control."

Oyer also noted that former Attorney General Pam Bondi "rarely" used her official DOJ email, and cited reporting by the New York Times and The Atlantic about how senior officials used auto-deleting Signal chats.