"Most Discreditable Person to Ever Seek the Office of Attorney General:" Whitehouse Blasts Blanche

[0:00] Thank you, Chairman. Today, I think, is a sad and embarrassing day for this committee. [0:08] As it looks like on a party-line vote, we are going to advance out of this committee [0:14] probably the most discreditable person ever to seek the office of Attorney General of the United [0:21] States. The reasons to vote against him number in the hundreds, but let's just focus on a few [0:29] where my Republican colleagues purport to have great concern. Let's start with the Epstein files [0:39] where Todd Blanch participated in the cover-up, continues to participate in the cover-up, [0:53] and is responsible for a massive screw-up of the release of the documents. Cover-up and screw-up [1:04] on the Epstein files. What do I mean by cover-up? Well, first, they looked at four FBI 302s that [1:20] were the testimony of a woman who told the FBI in a formal statement that she had been sexually [1:27] assaulted and physically assaulted by Donald Trump around 13 or 14 years of age. Of those four 302s, [1:39] they released one, the one that did not mention Donald Trump. Well, fortunately for transparency, [1:53] these documents had been released in other areas and bait-stamped. So people figured out that some [2:02] were missing. And with that, the other 302s that mentioned Donald Trump had to be produced. Only [2:12] because they got caught were those 302s produced. And right now, as we sit here, Todd Blanch is still [2:21] sitting on 37 pages that are almost certainly the agent's notes off of which the 302s were taken. [2:32] That should be disclosed under the Epstein files law. But instead, those 37 pages remain covered up. [2:45] Where else did the cover-up go? Well, the Department of Justice received suspicious activity reports from [2:53] the Treasury Department about Epstein's accounts, many of them related to Russia. You'd think that an [3:04] investigative body like the Department of Justice could look at a document called [3:08] suspicious activity report and deduce that there might be suspicious activity. But did they even have a look? [3:21] Billions of dollars in Epstein fund transfers. And the Todd Blanch department never even had a look. [3:35] And then you get to Ghislaine Maxwell, where a deputy attorney general flew to Tallahassee to have a [3:47] private meeting with a woman convicted of participating in Epstein's depravity. And what was the upshot of that [4:01] meeting? Was it to get more information about who else was culpable, about whose secrets were still [4:08] being kept? No. It was to get exculpatory information about Donald Trump and then reward her with a move to [4:24] a club-fed prison. Now, the nominal excuse for that is, oh, she was in danger in her earlier prison. So we had to [4:35] move her. How often does a prisoner allegedly facing threats or danger get moved to a less secure facility? [4:49] I mean, think about it. It doesn't pass the test of common sense. So between the botched disclosure, which [5:07] revealed victims of Epstein's depravity, whose names had not been previously known, in some cases with [5:18] photographic images, with their addresses, in some cases photographs without being fully clothed. Where [5:29] does the buck stop for that if not with Mr. Blanch? That was an epic botch that did real harm to Epstein's [5:43] victims. Voting for this guy today gives their blessing to the screw up, to the botched release that even [5:58] Pam Bondi pointed at Blanch as responsible for. And it gives the blessing to his continuing role in the [6:08] cover-up of Epstein files. So there's Epstein for you. And let me add, ask the letter from the Epstein [6:20] victims to Senators Tillis and Cornyn to be put into the record. So next we get to this crooked slush fund, [6:30] Trump family tax amnesty scam. Let's take a look at that. We've got these two new pieces of paper, [6:40] one signed only by Todd Blanch, one not signed by anybody, neither of which has any legal effect [6:47] whatsoever. They are decorative. So what problems do they leave behind? Well, one is, can you trust [6:58] Todd Blanch going forward? I will tell you, I do not. I think it would be unreasonable to trust him [7:09] going forward. There is enough weasel room in these documents to drive a truck through. And what might [7:18] that truck look like? Well, you could get rid of the Anti-Weaponization Fund for $1.776 billion, [7:29] and in a month, put out the Trump Justice Fund for $1.9 billion. Nothing in this document prevents [7:39] anything like that from happening. You could open a drive-up window at the Department of Justice [7:49] for cop beaters from January 6 to come through and get friendly Federal Tort Claims Act settlements [7:59] from the Department of Justice. They're already handing out settlements to Trump's allies. What's to [8:07] prevent the drive-up window? Come on in. Here we are. We got the friendly form for you to file, [8:16] and here's a check. Nothing prevents the cop beaters from being funded by the Trump Department [8:26] of Justice. But let's assume that we really have made a big improvement here. Let's assume that [8:40] the burglar has been forced to give back some of the jewelry he stole. Being forced to give back some [8:54] ill-gotten gains doesn't mean you're not still a burglar. There's a question of the man's character [9:05] that he was willing to get into these schemes in the first place, into what George Will called the [9:17] sludge of self-dealing of this administration. Even if there isn't Slush Fund 2.0, and even if there [9:34] isn't the drive-up window for cop beaters, there's a real problem with an individual who would agree to [9:45] that in the first place. To me, that should be disqualifying. And the last bit on that is how he got [9:55] there. Let's not forget that there is an ongoing proceeding in Florida in federal court with an open [10:04] question whether Todd Blanche committed a fraud upon the court. We don't hear that term, fraud upon the court, [10:15] very often. It's probably the worst thing you can accuse someone of in a court proceeding. It means [10:24] you're an officer of the court. It means you abused the process of the court and you did so in order to [10:32] accomplish an unjust and wrongful result. It's actually worse than contempt of court. It is so bad [10:41] that in the history of the Department of Justice, no senior official has ever been even accused of a [10:51] fraud upon the court. And we're advancing this guy before that question is settled in Florida. While [11:01] there's still a bar issue, a disciplinary issue with the New York bar related to that misconduct, fraud on [11:11] the court is a big deal. And it's not going away. Then last of all, you've just got the general [11:22] dishonesty and incompetence of the operation that Todd Blanche is running. And I'm not going to go [11:30] through the list. It would take the whole day. But let me go through a couple of summaries of it. The [11:39] Economist magazine, not exactly a left wing publication, had its lead article, its cover [11:48] article on the U.S. Department of Justice titled, Degradation in Process. Degradation in Process. [12:02] I ask unanimous consent to add that article to my remarks. Then here's a story from ProPublica. [12:15] Federal judges chastise Trump's Justice Department for unlawful, unethical, and unseemly conduct. [12:20] I'll just read the first sentence. Across the country, federal judges are calling out Department [12:27] of Justice lawyers questioning in unprecedented ways whether they can be trusted to tell the truth [12:35] or uphold centuries old legal norms. I ask unanimous consent that that article be added to the record. [12:45] And then there's a group called Just Security, which reads through decisions from federal judges [12:52] around the country and gathers the incidences in which the federal judge has challenged the integrity [13:05] or the competence of the Department of Justice. It's about this thick. I'll just ask to have its [13:18] introduction put into the record. If my colleagues want to go and look and see what the avalanche of [13:29] misconduct that Blanche's leadership has precipitated looks like, you know where to find the report. [13:36] Here's the introduction. It talks about the presumption of regularity, a judicially created [13:45] doctrine with a long and contested history. The doctrine affords the executive branch a distinct [13:51] advantage by instructing courts to presume that executive officials have properly discharged their official [13:58] duties. And what the report characterized is the destruction of that presumption of regularity in [14:08] this Department of Justice. So I ask unanimous consent that that be added as well. And then since I've mentioned [14:17] it, I'll also ask George Will's article where I described his description of the settlement between the [14:28] president and the executive branch. He heads exemplifying the administration's sludge of self-dealing that [14:35] that also be added to the record. The last question that I'm left with here is what's left of this committee? [14:48] What's left of this committee when we don't demand straight answers from witnesses? How many times has this [14:57] Department of Justice been asked what became of the fifty thousand dollars that the FBI reported that it [15:07] handed to Mr. Homan in a bribery sting? That's administrative stuff. That gets reported. There's an account. [15:17] You've got to check the money out. If you get the money back, you've got to check the money back. [15:22] There's an administrative trail. We can't get any information about that. Our Republican colleagues [15:31] see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. Kash Patel virtually certainly lied to this committee [15:41] sitting in front of us. Is there any interest in that at a time when Republicans in Congress seem agitated [15:53] about Biden officials lying to Congress? We got lies right here, folks. I don't know where this committee [16:07] goes after it stops being taken seriously because all you have to be is on the right partisan side [16:17] to get this committee to roll over and play dead. Thank you, Chairman.