Todd Blanche's Horrendous Hearing
We watched the entirety of the US Attorney General confirmation hearing so you don’t have to. Here’s what you need to know.
On Wednesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faced lots of questions at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It didn’t go well.
Over the course of 5 hours, Blanche lied, obfuscated, and sputtered in his attempt to show unquestioning loyalty to Trump – a requirement of every MAGA nominee.
We watched every second so you didn’t have to. Here are the biggest take-aways.
1. “I’m His Lawyer.”
If there was one moment that summed up the hearing, it was this one.
While fielding what were supposed to be softball questions, Republican Senator John Kennedy asked: “Are you and Trump friends?” To which Blanche revealed the worst-kept secret in Washington: “I’m his lawyer.”
He tried to backtrack immediately: “Or.. was his lawyer.” But his knee-jerk reaction told the truth.
It was a remarkable slip for someone insisting throughout the hearing that he could independently oversee the Justice Department (though, if you were to look at what he’s done already at the helm of the Justice Department, you’d know this isn’t true.)
Blanche has resigned from his private practice where he personally defended Trump in his Stormy Daniels hush-money payments trial (and subsequent conviction on 34 felony counts), the classified documents case, and January 6th election interference case. The only problem is Blanche’s entire pitch to senators rests on the pipe dream that he would suddenly become an at-least-somewhat impartial steward of the law.
When pressed, Blanche didn’t sound like an Attorney General-in-waiting, but more like a well-trained defense attorney still making arguments on his client’s behalf.
The Attorney General does not exist to be the president’s personal attorney. The Attorney General should not profess their love for the Commander-in-Chief. The AG is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, responsible for upholding the law and prosecuting all those who violate it, including the president himself.
Whether you want to call it a Freudian slip or just force of habit, one thing is perfectly clear: under Todd Blanche, the Department of Justice will remain the Department of Trump.
2. Blanche’s Own Words Used Against Him
The Todd Blanche who sat before the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday wanted you to believe that he was mild-mannered, less combative, and more independent than his long-forgotten predecessor Pam Bondi.
Just one hitch: his own words.
Senator Dick Durbin made sure to remind us of Blanche’s now-infamous moment after Trump elevated Blanche to Acting Attorney General, where Blanche loudly declared: “I love you, sir.”
Durbin made clear that the comment revealed the extraordinary personal loyalty Blanche has shown Trump, raising obvious questions about whether, or if, he’ll ever tell the president “no.”
Blanche tried to brush it off, and almost half-heartedly insisted he could separate personal feelings from professional responsibilities.
Senators didn’t buy it.
3. The Epstein Blunder
In perhaps the most emotional exchange of the day, Senator Cory Booker blasted Blanche over the Department of Justice’s mishandling of the Epstein files, and more importantly, of the survivors themselves.
During the hearing, Blanche refused to commit to personally meet with any survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s atrocities, despite repeated requests from senators, advocates, and survivors alike.
It was only afterwards, when Blanche realized he wouldn’t have enough votes to be confirmed otherwise, that – finally – he relented and met with a group of Epstein survivors. But this does nothing to take away from the fact that he was willfully and intentionally absent when it counted.
When the DOJ was considering how to deal with the Epstein files and whether to suppress them or not (spoiler: they tried, and failed, to do just that) Blanche wasn’t just radio silent. He flew to Florida and interviewed Epstein’s chief abetter Ghislaine Maxwell to see what she’d say about Trump, after which she was moved to a posh minimum-security prison, a move unheard of for people convicted of crimes involving sexual assault and trafficking.
Then, when the DOJ finally capitulated following the GOP-controlled Congress’s direct rebuke of Trump by demanding the release of the Epstein files, Blanche refused – again – to meet with survivors, and instead published personal, identifying details of Epstein’s victims, forcing them to live through the trauma all over again.
Todd Blanche meeting with survivors now does nothing to erase what he did then.
Blanche spent the entirety of his hearing trying to sell senators on an impossible proposition: that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer can somehow become an independent Attorney General simply by taking a different oath.
In the words of Senator Booker:
“We don’t need your promises. We have your record.”
So, in summary:
⚖️Todd Blanche is Trump’s lawyer. He said it himself.
🏛️Todd Blanche is an “independent law enforcement official” … except when it comes to anything attached to the name “Trump.”
🤝Todd Blanche claims “no one is above the law” … yet created a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay January 6th rioters who broke into the Capitol on Trump’s command.
📂Todd Blanche claims survivors deserve justice … but he spent 9 hours with Ghislaine Maxwell, and had not even met with Epstein survivors until he was forced to for the sake of getting confirmed.
👥 Todd Blanche says he’ll serve the American people … but if yesterday is any judge, we know he has only one client: Donald J. Trump.