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The U.S. Senate is preparing to vote on Donald Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General. This comes after Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) caved to Trump and voted to advance Blanche’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They had expressed seemingly sincere concerns about Blanche’s willingness to weaponize the Justice Department by creating a “payout pot for punks,” an understated alliteration for Trump’s effort to enrich the violent thugs who attacked Capitol Police on Jan. 6 on his behalf. [In the dark of night, while this post was in queue for publication, the Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Blanche.]
But at the end of the day, with Trump on the ropes, Cornyn and Tillis folded. Instead of standing tall, they negotiated a totally unenforceable deal with Blanche–a way to save face while continuing to do Trump’s bidding, even though he effectively ended their Senate careers and Blanche has been a walking disaster at DOJ.
What craven cowards!
They could have redeemed themselves by standing firm on their legitimate objections to Trump’s Acting Attorney General behaving like his personal attorney. Blanche brazenly signed off on a plainly collusive agreement that uses the Justice Department to enrich Trump’s violent co-conspirators in his efforts to subvert the votes of the American people in the 2020 presidential election. It also seeks to protect–and enrich–Trump from any DOJ or other agency investigations into wrongdoing by him, his family, or his businesses over the past several years.
Cornyn and Tills accepted Blanche’s claim that the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization fund is dead. But they did nothing to prevent the federal government’s “Judgment Fund” from continuing to enrich Trump’s guilty gang.
And there’s another problem. As Cornyn himself pointed out during Blanche’s hearing, the agreement between DOJ and Trump’s other lawyers says it cannot be modified without the signatures of both parties. Federal Judge Kathleen Williams, however, rebuked the agreement and said it should be considered void since it was non-adversarial. In other words, as Trump himself conceded, it was Trump negotiating with Trump for whatever Trump wants.
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Blanche was and is the vehicle for getting that dirty deal done. And what a vehicle he is–he’s everything any mobster could want in a lawyer doing his bidding.
It’s just not the job of the Attorney General.
Worse, Blanche doesn’t need a special “Anti-Weaponization” fund to reward Trump loyalists with money. The Judgment Fund already exists and has been used to reward millions of dollars to bad people who have done bad things in pursuit of Trump’s agenda.
Blanche’s DOJ gave more than $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt who tried to force herself through the glass protecting the House chamber in her violent effort to block our votes from being counted on Jan. 6. A court previously found that the officer who shot her did not violate the law while defending the Members of Congress sheltered in the Chamber. Yet, Blanche rewarded her violence with millions.
On his watch, DOJ also paid out over $1.2 million to Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian agents in 2016 and later urged Trump to declare martial law to stay in power and redo the 2020 election. The not-so-funny thing is that the Treasury Department’s public disclosures of settlements paid in March do not list Flynn, his attorneys, or even that amount. Who knows how many other Trump loyalists have already reaped big rewards courtesy of Blanche’s sycophancy–or will in the years ahead.
Thank goodness Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has sued the Treasury Department over its redaction of the names of some settlement recipients. What most people don’t know is that due to federal liability for an array of negligence–from failing to clear icy sidewalks to polluting drinking wells on military bases–the government quietly pays out over $2 billion a year to settle cases. Blanche and Trump tried to ensure that nearly that amount went specifically to the Jan. 6 offenders Trump pardoned. But killing their special fund doesn’t solve the underlying problem: there’s nothing in the current law to prevent such payoffs from continuing through the general Judgment Fund.
And that’s not all.
Cornyn and Tillis also traded their no votes for an unenforceable statement from Blanche that the immunity he gave Trump only applies retroactively. They agreed to this even as news was breaking that Capital One had debanked Trump in 2021 due to serious concerns that transactions processed by his accounts fit patterns associated with money laundering. Based on its experts’ assessment, Capital One told Trump that he needed to move more than 300 accounts to another bank, and then Trump sued them.
Despite all this, Cornyn and Tillis caved on Blanche’s nomination. So did Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). This lame duck trio, pushed out of office by Trump, could not find it in themselves to oppose his unfit AG nominee as a swan song. Lame does not even begin to describe their cowardice. They’ve each got plenty of money in the bank to retire on, but still could not muster one final stand against Blanche and Trump. Only Susan Collins (R-ME), who is up this year, and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who is up in 2028, have signaled they will join Democrats in voting no on Blanche, who is not yet done weaponizing DOJ to serve Trump’s vindictive and venal interests.
Cornyn claimed he lacked the power to rein in Trump–even though voting “no” was entirely within his power.
But, We the People have power too. This November, we can vote up and down the ballot to elect representatives who will stand up to Trump–and to his criminal and civil defense lawyer acting as Attorney General.
Cornyn and other Trump lackeys won’t save us. It’s up to us to vote and make sure our votes are counted.
What I’m Reading or Rereading:
This PBS lesson guide on the Voting Rights Act
August 6 marked the 61st anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark law John Roberts has sought to destroy.
Judge Mehta’s criticism over the Blanche DOJ’s motion to dismiss the seditious conspiracy charges against Stewart Rhodes, a so-called Oath Keeper who actively sought to block the peaceful transition of power to aid Trump’s illegitimate claims on Jan. 6.
Judge Mehta noted that Rhodes had been called an “ongoing threat and peril” to the United States and lamented DOJ’s effort to rewrite history by dismissing the well-founded charges against him and others.
The court motion filed by Capital One in response to Trump’s suit against the company for debanking him.
In it, the company discusses how a pattern of suspicious transactions in 2021 led it to conclude that banking with Trump was too risky to continue.
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"This November, we can vote up and down the ballot to elect representatives who will stand up to Trump–and to his criminal and civil defense lawyer acting as Attorney General."
Let's hope we get to vote Ms. Graves....
November can't come soon enough. It amazes me how many lawyers are willing to sell their souls to the devil.