Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general faced a series of excoriating attacks on his character by Democratic senators before a committee vote to forward his controversial nomination.
Todd Blanche was accused of lying under oath, denigrating Epstein survivors and creating an extraordinary backroom deal to “aid and abet the most corrupt administration” in U.S. history.
Top Senate Democrats delivered a scorched-earth rebuke of the former Trump attorney, outlining in detail the lengths he has gone to appease the president.
In a fiery monologue ahead of the vote, Dick Durbin, the leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the hearing how one of Blanche’s first acts as deputy attorney general was to issue a memo gutting DOJ’s crypto crime enforcement, “which allowed the president to rake in $1.4 billion in a crypto windfall last year—even as Americans reported billions of dollars in cryptocurrency fraud loss.”
Blanche also bragged about firing career law enforcement officials assigned to investigate Trump’s misconduct, Durbin said, a move that resulted in years of expertise now gone from the Justice Department.
And at a private meeting last month in front of the senator and his staff, Durbin said that Blanche “told me he ‘made a mistake’ by creating the January 6th slush fund” only to lie about it publicly.
“When I asked him about this under oath, Mr. Blanche falsely claimed that he never made this statement,” a visibly angry Durbin said.
“That’s not true. Mr. Blanche’s willingness to casually lie under oath about a statement he made in a room full of witnesses shows the lengths he will go to avoid offending President Trump.”
“Instead of serving the American people and upholding the rule of law and the Constitution, Mr. Blanche has aided and abetted the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States,” Durbin added.
The hearing took place prior to the Senate Judiciary Committee voting to advance Blanche’s nomination to a full vote in the Senate.
But it is not clear whether Blanche will have enough support in the narrowly divided Senate, where Mitch McConnell remains missing, and the backing of GOP Senators Susan Collins and Bill Cassidy is uncertain.
After days of holding out, Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn extracted what they billed as a concession from the administration: the formal cancellation of a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund and written assurances narrowing tax audit protection included in Trump’s settlement with the IRS.
But their victory lap was immediately overshadowed by criticism that the pair had secured far less than suggested because the controversial agreement shielding Trump, his family and his businesses from IRS scrutiny remains.
What’s more, all parties, including Trump, are also required to sign the latest agreement in order for it to be fully rescinded, and that has not yet happened.
Trump has increasingly called for the Senate to confirm Blanche, who used to be his personal attorney.
“Todd Blanche is a very, very good man... He should get approved because you’ll never get anybody like him,” Trump said last week.
On Tuesday, after Blanche cleared the latest hurdle, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson added: “This is great news and we look forward to his final confirmation shortly. Todd Blanche has done an excellent job as acting Attorney General and will continue doing so as Attorney General.”
But at Tuesday’s hearing, Democrats lined up to make the opposite case.
“The problem with Todd Blanche is that he has never been able to shed his role as Trump’s defense attorney,” said Senator Adam Schiff.
Former attorney Sheldon Whitehouse added: “Let’s not forget that there is an ongoing proceeding in Florida in federal court with an open question whether Todd Blanche committed a fraud upon the court,” he added, in reference to a legal challenge to the $1.8 billion slush fund settlement by a group of retired judges.
“It is so bad that in the history of the Department of Justice, no senior official has ever been even accused of a fraud upon the court. And we’re advancing this guy before that question is settled.”
Earlier, Epstein survivors put out a statement saying advancing Blanche’s nomination was a “profound disappointment.”
“When we met with Todd, Blanche, he interrupted us. He told us to ‘get to the point’. He told us to report what happened to us to the FBI. We already have. Some of us have been reporting these crimes for decades,” they wrote.
“This was a check-the-box meeting designed to secure Senator Tillis’ vote.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Blanche and DOJ for comment.
