All HELL BREAKS LOOSE as Cory Booker Explodes at Todd Blanche at Fiery Senate Hearing — AC1G

[0:00] as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Booker. Mr. Chairman, I am shocked. I think I've been [0:09] here 14 years. I have not seen something as farcical as what I've witnessed over the last [0:14] few weeks. We have a nominee that it seemed like some of my colleagues in a noble way were saying [0:20] is unqualified unless he gives some kind of guarantee that what we now know on both sides [0:27] of the aisle Americans think is absolutely outrageous. A slush fund had been created for [0:33] the president to dole out to people who've done the most awful things, literally people that stormed [0:38] the Capitol and beat police officers in this building would not get taxpayer dollars as some [0:46] kind of reward. Universal disagreement on that and the fact that a president of the United States is [0:54] not above the law and shouldn't be able to cheat on their taxes. And so I've sat back for days now [1:01] looking forward to us at least of all the things that Todd Blanche has done that is disqualifying [1:07] for this job. I thought at least we were going to be able to get an end to that nightmare. And here's [1:17] the thing, Mr. Chairman, you even have conservatives coming out and saying these things are not worth [1:33] the paper they're drawn on. I have a lot of respect for my colleagues, love the state of Texas, but I'm going to [1:41] say it very clear. This is all hat and no cattle. It's hard for me to say this as a plant-based guy, but where's [1:48] the beef? Where's the beef? This is ridiculous. We got nothing, no guarantees whatsoever that this slush fund still [1:59] can't go forward. We got nothing that the president of the United States can't cheat on his taxes and have no [2:06] accountability. Dear God, folks, it's not like we're talking about a president who is a saint. No president in the [2:16] history of this country has been caught in tax cheating more than this one. A Pulitzer Prize winning [2:23] documentation of his tax cheating came out in 2018. Pulitzer Prize. Donald Trump said, I'm going to sue [2:32] you. It's all wrong. That suit was thrown out because the president is a tax cheat. But it didn't stop [2:39] with that. He was a tax cheat with his nonprofit as well. He created a so-called charity. But what did he do [2:46] with that charity? It was cited by the state of New York for self-dealing, for tax cheating, and was shut [2:54] down. We have a known arsonist, and we have just in this committee given him a whole barrel full of [3:02] gasoline to light on fire our tax laws and have no accountability for the conflagration. This is so [3:12] ridiculous that we are sitting back here and allowing this to happen. A president that we know is a tax [3:20] cheap. That is a fact. That is a fact. We have now just given him an immunity to his tax cheating. Now, [3:29] here's an admission I'm going to make to my colleagues on the other side. We've had presidents [3:34] that have done things that, to me, do not pass the smell test and do not pass the appearance of [3:40] impropriety. I think this committee should pass a law that no children of presidents should be able to [3:47] grift off their parents' office. To me, it is ridiculous the corruption that we have normalized in [3:53] America, that president's children can go out and sit on boards and make money. That is wrong, [4:02] and that is corrupting. But they have become so obsessed with the billions, the millions that the [4:08] Bidens have made that they have ignored completely the billions of dollars that the Trump family is [4:16] making. That is like being obsessed and using a magnifying glass to study the stain on the living [4:24] room carpet when behind you is a mountain of excrement covering the living room couch and coffee table. [4:33] This is so outrageous, the lack of proportionality going on of my colleagues. It is laughable. This is [4:41] absolutely insane that we have a president of the United States that has now made $2 billion [4:47] dollars. Doing what? Wow, he's such a shrewd businessman. Let me create my own crypto coin and have [4:53] foreign nations invest in it. Oh, and by the way, if you are a corporation in America, put my children on [4:59] the board and they'll get no bid contracts. We are, this is the judiciary committee. We're supposed to be [5:08] checking and balancing this nation. Why have people on both sides of the aisle given up on any trust in [5:16] government? It's because we're surrendering any shred of integrity left. And now we're letting [5:23] an attorney general become the highest law enforcement officer in the land and putting no [5:30] holds whatsoever. I had hoped for two weeks that we would get something. Two weeks that we would have [5:38] something substantive to stop the world's greatest presidential tax cheat from cheating. And we've done [5:45] nothing. And this man is going to now sail to the floor and history is going to show it. I know what's [5:53] going to come out in history on this president. And I know what's going to come out on Todd Blanche. [5:59] And the simplest way that should outrage any shred of decency my colleagues have, [6:04] because this isn't left or right. This isn't presidential enrichment. This is the deepest, [6:11] most sacred urgency of this committee. And I know colleagues on both sides care about it. Victims of [6:20] crime should have justice. And here in the United States of America, one of the greatest sex trafficking [6:32] rings we've ever seen, when only two people, over a thousand women, sexually assaulted and raped, [6:41] only two people have been held accountable. There are other criminals out there that haven't been found. [6:47] And what did the man that we're talking about becoming the attorney general of the United States, [6:52] what did he do? Well, he joined in the situation room in the White House. You all know what the [6:59] situation room is, right? This is where we go to deal with the greatest national security threats [7:05] in a classified room to deal with the safety of our nation. And yet this administration in the [7:13] situation room calls an emergency meeting at which Todd Blanche was there to say, [7:19] what are we going to do? Because the president appears in the Epstein files hundreds of times. [7:26] They didn't get together to say, this is really bad. This is eroding trust in the justice system. [7:32] This is eroding trust in the rule of law. We have to find a way to hold powerful people accountable. [7:37] No, they came together with Todd Blanche in the room. How do we protect the president? [7:43] And what happened after that? One of the most unusual things in the history of our country [7:49] happened after that. Todd Blanche, at the highest heights of our Justice Department, [7:56] ran to the prison of Ghislaine Maxwell. This is unprecedented. This is, lawyers tell me, [8:03] untoward. This is corrupting. He didn't study the case files. He didn't talk to the prosecutors. [8:10] No, he ran to the jail cell and met with her for two days, [8:13] insulting every single Epstein victim that had been asking for a meeting for years. And after two days [8:23] of meetings, did we get information that led to an indictment? No. Did we get information that led to [8:32] new opens of investigations? No. Did we get one more conviction? No. What did we get? That a convicted [8:40] sex offender was able to leave her confinement and go to the cushiest prison in our land that by Bureau of [8:51] Prison Law, by DOJ Law, is a violation of their principles. So Ghislaine Maxwell is sitting in the [9:02] lowest possible confinement after giving no information that helped us get one more investigation [9:10] started and has been silent. And the man responsible for that, we are about to make the attorney general [9:21] of the United States of America. This man is not our lawyer. He is not America's lawyer. He is about to [9:31] become Trump's sword against his adversaries and shield against any scrutiny. The shield is going to [9:39] shield him from tax cheating. The shield is going to shield him from investigation for any involvement [9:44] he may have had in Epstein's deeds. And the sword, I've seen it, unprecedented that the attorney general [9:53] should investigate colleagues here on this committee. This is farcical. It would be literally laughably [10:03] funny if it wasn't so dangerous. We are about to put a person in one of the most powerful positions [10:11] in the land, vital for not only enforcing the law, protecting national security, but also vital for [10:18] upholding our democracy. And my Republican colleagues sound like Jan Brady, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, [10:28] Biden, Biden, Biden. You are worried about a pickpocket, a pickpocket when it comes to grand theft [10:37] larceny. When it comes to our democracy, you're worried about someone who is doing petty theft [10:45] while there is the murder of our democratic traditions going on before our eyes. We are in dangerous [10:52] waters, folks. We are in dangerous waters. We are turning the ideals of justice and this committee [10:59] into a mockery by letting the least qualified person, a person proven to do Donald Trump's will [11:06] over the law. He is about Trump and not truth. He is about corruption and not the Constitution. He's [11:13] about being Donald Trump's lawyer and not the people's lawyer. This is so deeply wrong. We will [11:20] rue the day that we let this man have this much power under such a corrupt president. Thank you. [11:26] Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [11:31] Colleagues and members of the public, we've been hearing a lot about this tax community.