Trump attorney general’s profane outburst over firing mishap leaked

Attorney General Todd Blanche looks on in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., June 26, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno

Attorney General Todd Blanche had a profanity-laced reaction, according to information acquired by The Daily Beast, after realizing he had fired a Justice Department lawyer involved with a major MAGA-friendly actor's gun rights case.

The Daily Beast reported on Monday — via its sister Substack, PunchUp — that Blanche cursed after firing pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer last March. Her dismissal was "part of a wider clear-out of career DOJ officials with links to the Biden administration" that took place upon Trump's return to office, but Blanche realized too late that firing Oyer might give the public the wrong idea.

Oyer was specifically "involved in an internal Justice Department dispute over Trumpy movie star Mel Gibson’s gun rights," the outlet noted. The pardon attorney was reportedly in conflict with others in the DOJ about Gibson, the conservative actor and filmmaker, having his right to own firearms restored. He had previously lost those after being convicted of domestic abuse.

After learning what Oyer was involved in a few days after firing her, anonymous insider sources told PunchUp that Blanche had a heated reaction to the realization, worrying that her dismissal would be interpreted as retaliation for her role in the Gibson case.

“F——! She’s going to think that’s why I fired her," Blanche said, according to sources with direct knowledge of the conversation.

"It is the latest twist in an extraordinary and increasingly bitter fallout at the heart of the DOJ, with department officials furiously disputing Oyer’s account of the events surrounding her removal," The Daily Beast explained. "A spokesperson for Oyer said she repeatedly asked the DOJ for an official explanation for her firing, but they repeatedly refused."

"What they say at this point has zero credibility,” her team added.

The report added further: "Oyer has maintained that she was fired because she refused to recommend that Gibson, 70, have his gun rights reinstated. The Braveheart actor lost that privilege after pleading no contest to misdemeanor spousal battery involving his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva in 2011. Oyer has said then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul Perkins instructed her to add Gibson to a shortlist of nine other candidates for firearms rights restoration and pressed her when she resisted, alleging that Perkins told her Gibson’s relationship with Donald Trump, 80, should be sufficient reason to recommend him."

Perkins, having since left the DOJ, told PunchUp in a previous report that Oyer's allegations were "categorically false" and "denied ever saying the rules governing restoration needed to accommodate Gibson."

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