BRUTAL: Sheldon Whitehouse Absolutely Shreds Todd Blanche's Nomination For Attorney General

[0:00] Thank you, Chairman. Today, I think, is a sad and embarrassing day for this committee. [0:11] As it looks like on a party-line vote, we are going to advance out of this committee [0:16] probably the most discreditable person ever to seek the office of Attorney General of the United [0:24] States. The reasons to vote against him number in the hundreds, but let's just focus on a few [0:32] where my Republican colleagues purport to have great concern. Let's start with the Epstein files [0:42] where Todd Blanch participated in the cover-up, continues to participate in the cover-up, [0:56] and is responsible for a massive screw-up of the release of the documents. Cover-up and screw-up [1:07] on the Epstein files. What do I mean by cover-up? Well, first, they looked at four FBI 302s that were [1:23] the testimony of a woman who told the FBI in a formal statement that she had been sexually assaulted and [1:31] physically assaulted by Donald Trump around 13 or 14 years of age. Of those four 302s, [1:42] they released one, the one that did not mention Donald Trump. Well, fortunately for transparency, [1:56] these documents had been released in other areas and bait-stamped. So people figured out that some [2:04] were missing. And with that, the other 302s that mentioned Donald Trump had to be produced. Only [2:14] because they got caught were those 302s produced. And right now, as we sit here, Todd Blanch is still [2:23] sitting on 37 pages that are almost certainly the agent's notes off of which the 302s were taken. [2:37] That should be disclosed under the Epstein files law. But instead, those 37 pages remain covered up. [2:48] Where else did the cover-up go? Well, the Department of Justice received suspicious activity reports from [2:55] the Treasury Department about Epstein's accounts, many of them related to Russia. You'd think that an [3:06] investigative body like the Department of Justice could look at a document called suspicious activity [3:13] report and deduce that there might be suspicious activity. But did they even have a look? Billions [3:26] of dollars in Epstein fund transfers. And the Todd Blanch department never even had a look. And then you [3:40] get to Ghislaine Maxwell, where a deputy attorney general flew to Tallahassee to have a private meeting [3:51] with a woman convicted of participating in Epstein's depravity. And what was the upshot of that meeting? [4:04] Was it to get more information about who else was culpable, about whose secrets were still being [4:11] kept? No. It was to get exculpatory information about Donald Trump and then reward her with a move [4:25] to a club-fed prison. Now, the nominal excuse for that is, oh, she was in danger in her earlier prison. [4:37] So we had to move her. How often does a prisoner allegedly facing threats or danger get moved to [4:50] a less secure facility? I mean, think about it. It doesn't pass the test of common sense. So between [5:06] the botched disclosure, which revealed victims of Epstein's depravity, whose names had not been [5:18] previously known, in some cases with photographic images, with their addresses, in some cases, photographs [5:25] without being fully clothed. Where does the buck stop for that if not with Mr. Blanch? That was an epic [5:41] botch that did real harm to Epstein's victims. Voting for this guy today gives their blessing to the screw up, to the [5:59] botched release that even Pam Bondi pointed at Blanch as responsible for, and it gives the blessing to [6:08] his continuing role in the cover-up of Epstein files. So there's Epstein for you. And let me add, ask the [6:21] letter from the Epstein victims to Senators Tillis and Cornyn to be put into the record. So next we get to this [6:31] crooked slush fund Trump family tax amnesty scam. Let's take a look at that. We've got these two new [6:41] pieces of paper, one signed only by Todd Blanch, one not signed by anybody, neither of which has any legal [6:49] effect whatsoever. They are decorative. So what problems do they leave behind? Well, one is, can you trust [7:01] Todd Blanch going forward? I will tell you, I do not. I think it would be unreasonable to trust him going [7:12] forward. There is enough weasel room in these documents to drive a truck through. And what might that truck [7:21] look like? Well, you could get rid of the anti weaponization fund for 1.776 billion. And in a month, put out the [7:35] Trump justice fund for 1.9 billion. Nothing in this document prevents anything like that from happening. [7:46] You could open a drive up window at the Department of Justice for cop beaters from January 6 to come [7:55] through and get friendly Federal Tort Claims Act settlements from the Department of Justice. [8:04] They're already handing out settlements to Trump's allies. What's to prevent the drive up [8:12] window? Come on in. Here we are. We got the friendly form for you to file and here's a check. [8:21] Nothing prevents the cop beaters from being funded by the Trump Department of Justice. [8:30] But let's assume that we really have made a big improvement here. Let's assume that the burglar [8:45] has been forced to give back some of the jewelry he stole. Being forced to give back some ill-gotten gains [9:01] doesn't mean you're not still a burglar. There's a question of the man's character [9:09] that he was willing to get into these schemes in the first place, into what George Will called the [9:20] sludge of self-dealing of this administration. Even if there isn't slush fund 2.0, and even if there [9:37] isn't the drive up window for cop beaters, there's a real problem with an individual who would agree to [9:48] that in the first place. To me, that should be disqualifying. And the last bit on that is how he [9:57] got there, let's not forget that there is an ongoing proceeding in Florida in federal court with an [10:06] open question whether Todd Blanche committed a fraud upon the court. We don't hear that term [10:17] fraud upon the court very often. It's probably the worst thing you can accuse someone of in a court [10:25] proceeding. It means you're an officer of the court, it means you abused the process of the court, [10:33] and you did so in order to accomplish an unjust and wrongful result. It's actually worse than [10:41] contempt of court. It is so bad that in the history of the Department of Justice, [10:49] no senior official has ever been even accused of a fraud upon the court. [10:56] And we're advancing this guy before that question is settled in Florida. While there's still a bar [11:06] issue, a disciplinary issue with the New York bar related to that misconduct, fraud on the court is [11:15] a big deal. And it's not going away. Then last of all, you've just got the general dishonesty and [11:26] incompetence of the operation that Todd Blanche is running. And I'm not going to go through the list, [11:33] it would take the whole day. But let me go through a couple of summaries of it. [11:41] The Economist magazine, not exactly a left-wing publication, had its lead article, its cover [11:51] article on the U.S. Department of Justice titled, Degradation in Process. Degradation in Process. [12:05] I ask unanimous consent to add that article to my remarks. Then here's a story from ProPublica, [12:18] federal judges chastise Trump's Justice Department for unlawful, unethical, and unseemly conduct. [12:23] I'll just read the first sentence. Across the country, federal judges are calling out [12:29] Department of Justice lawyers questioning in unprecedented ways whether they can be trusted [12:35] to tell the truth or uphold centuries-old legal norms. [12:41] I ask unanimous consent that that article be added to the record. And then there's a group called Just [12:49] Security, which reads through decisions from federal judges around the country and gathers [13:01] the incidences in which the federal judge has challenged the integrity or the competence [13:09] of the Department of Justice. It's about this thick. I'll just ask to have its introduction put into [13:23] the record. If my colleagues want to go and look and see what the avalanche of misconduct that Blanche's [13:33] leadership has precipitated looks like, you know where to find the report. Here's the introduction. [13:43] It talks about the presumption of regularity, a judicially created doctrine with a long and [13:49] contested history. The doctrine affords the executive branch a distinct advantage [13:55] by instructing courts to presume that executive officials have properly discharged their official [14:01] duties. And what the report characterized is the destruction of that presumption of regularity [14:11] in this Department of Justice. So I ask unanimous consent that that be added as well. And then since [14:19] I've mentioned it, I'll also ask George Will's article where I described his description of the [14:30] settlement between the president and the executive branch he heads exemplifying the administration's [14:35] sludge of self-dealing. That also be added to the record. The last question that I'm left with here [14:47] is what's left of this committee. What's left of this committee when we don't demand straight answers [14:55] from witnesses? How many times has this Department of Justice been asked what became of the fifty [15:05] thousand dollars that the FBI reported that it handed to Mr. Homan in a bribery sting? That's [15:16] administrative stuff. That gets reported. There's an account. You've got to check the money out. If you get [15:22] the money back, you've got to check the money back. There's an administrative trail. We can't get any [15:30] information about that. Our Republican colleagues see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. [15:39] Kash Patel virtually certainly lied to this committee sitting in front of us. Is there any interest in that [15:48] at a time when Republicans in Congress seem agitated about Biden officials lying to Congress? [16:03] We got lies right here, folks. I don't know where this committee goes after it stops being taken [16:13] seriously because all you have to be is on the right partisan side to get this committee to roll over [16:24] and play dead. Thank you, chairman.