Senate Judiciary Dems hold presser following Todd Blanche hearing

[0:00] with a virginia guard that was repeatedly being deployed into iraq and afghanistan [0:04] and i just had to go to too many funerals and too many homecomings where not all were present [0:09] and accounted for in too many wakes and i just said when i got here and chuck you know has has [0:16] seen me do this no matter who the president is democrat or republican i'm not going to allow [0:20] war to be waged by this country via shortcuts or end runs around the constitution we shouldn't [0:26] be sending our kids our best and our brightest into harm's way without a vote of congress and i've [0:31] i've taken that same position with presidents obama and and biden president trump term one and [0:37] now president trump we we told president trump before this war started it would be foolish for [0:43] him to do it there was no reason for the united states after 25 years of war in the middle east [0:48] to get dragged back in but he decided to do it and no consultation with congress no real notification [0:56] of congress certainly no seeking of congressional approval and if you wage a war without a clear [1:02] rationale without a clear plan without allies without consultation with congress guess what [1:07] it's not going to go well and it's going to be tremendously unpopular with the american public [1:13] i think i live in one of the most pro-military states in this country one of the first 14 casualties [1:20] robert marzon a warrant officer was one of the was a virginian from spottsylvania county [1:25] died within a few months of retiring at age 54 virginians have paid a billion eight at the pump [1:32] just for more gas than they would have paid had president trump not started the war and there's [1:36] all kinds of other inflation so whether it's the death of our troops the injury of our troops the [1:42] the deaths of innocent civilian school kids who get mistakenly bombed on the opening day of the war the [1:48] huge cost to the american taxpayer the huge cost to american family it's time for this war to be over [1:54] congress has now done something congress has never done since the war powers resolution has passed a [2:00] bipartisan resolution in two majority republican houses have said this war is illegal withdraw troops [2:08] unless you get a congressional authorization you know what president trump can break the law but he [2:13] can't change the law the law is the law congress has declared this war is illegal he's breaking the law by [2:20] continuing the war and we need to do everything we can everything we can including in the appropriations [2:26] and nda process to find a path back to a ceasefire that's working to straits of hormuz that were as [2:33] open as they were on february 27 to gas prices that are back what they were before the president on his [2:39] own start of this foolish war i i want to thank the senator schumer the democratic leader because you know [2:46] when i came to him and said hey look i not only want to vote but i'm i'm sort of going to want one [2:51] every week and we keep we need to just keep hammering on it and other great democratic colleagues are sort [2:57] of six of the senator duckworth and schiff and murphy and gallego and and um oh i know i'm part of [3:03] blanking on blanking on somebody i'm sorry to do that van holland we've we forced this over and over and [3:09] over again we had one republican vote then we had two and we had three then we had four and eventually got [3:14] the hcon res passed but we are we are operating in a very very unprecedented thing because congress [3:21] has now definitively rebuked this war and yet the president's doing it anyway and that not only puts [3:27] our troops at at physical risk it puts people at legal risk and with that thanks thank you everybody [3:32] sorry to be brief yes the real danger to national security is this war that's out of control [3:56] it's this war that has alienated our allies it's this war that has totally totally totally diminished [4:04] american power and ability to defend ourselves in the world do you have any concern with members [4:11] of their caucus stumping with abdul al-sayed in michigan including senator bernie sanders who's [4:17] going there this weekend let me say this um first george uh sorry donald trump is in terrible shape and [4:25] the republicans are in michigan his tariffs his war with canada in an economy that depends on cross-border [4:32] transfer transactions has made him look terrible second democrats have always come up with candidates [4:40] that fit their states we will do that in michigan we will beat the republican and we will take back [4:48] the senate the president is going to give address tomorrow night the white house has not been very [4:54] clear about what it may be about which could be about what he describes as election security how [4:58] concerned are you about efforts the white house may have to intervene and not only the upcoming midterms [5:05] but beyond well we're very worried about the white house they know they can't win the election fair [5:10] and square they know the american people are against them they know that the american people in the [5:16] house and senate are favoring our candidates so we don't put it past them to try whatever they can [5:22] but we are prepared we are red teaming what they might do and how we can combat it ahead of time [5:29] we have united ourselves the house the senate other governors to make sure that we can combat these [5:36] attempts to steal the election later yes well i'm going to wait further to hear her um uh at her [5:51] hearings and the vote thank you everybody what would this do to fisa try not to be too repetitive what [5:57] my colleagues have said but i do think the first item does warrant being underscored on the department [6:03] of justice's own website it says that one of their core missions is to be independent and impartial and [6:13] todd blanche clearly is anything but independent or impartial when it comes to donald trump's agenda [6:21] including his agenda of retribution against his perceived political enemies he's clearly not fit to [6:28] serve as attorney general of the united states he's not independent couldn't uh even respond to a very [6:40] fundamental law enforcement policy or best practice question about the need for independent [6:47] investigations credible independent investigations when there's officer involved shootings including [6:54] federal officers as we've seen a couple times just this last week alone he says cash patel is doing [7:03] a great job there's so much that uh you can point to to show that the department of justice has been [7:14] doing a horrible job this last year and a half and i mentioned that only because most nominees that come [7:19] through here will couch their responses with well if i'm fortunate enough to be confirmed then i will [7:26] pledge to do this or i'll commit to doing that todd lynch owns what's been happening with this department [7:32] of justice since day one he's been the deputy attorney general and since pam bondi's firing he's been the [7:39] acting attorney general he needs to be an independent attorney general not trump's personal lawyer the people [7:47] united states deserve better our constitution deserves better y brevemente en español lo que vimos hoy [7:55] es lo que ya sabíamos de todd blanch una persona que es más fiel a los caprichos y los abusos del [8:01] presidente de los estados unidos donald trump que a la constitución y al pueblo de los estados unidos [8:09] no le importa la oportunidad de traer justicia a personas que son víctimas víctimas fatales a las [8:19] manos de los agentes de ais de la administración trump es más fiel a presidente que la constitución la [8:28] constitución merece mejor respeto el pueblo merece mejor respeto estamos opuesto a la confirmación de [8:36] todd blanch thank you senator durbin there was a central question in this hearing and that central [8:48] question was who does todd blanch represent does he represent the person of the president or does [8:54] he represent the american people and time after time after time it became clear the answer is he [8:59] represents donald trump the person of donald trump indeed he said as much in what i think we can all [9:04] describe as a freudian slip but we see evidence of that in his entire conduct during the year that he's [9:11] been in the justice department or more than a year if you look at some of the most egregious examples [9:17] you look at this slush fund agreement this irs so-called settlement that according florida recently [9:24] reviewed and found that there was no adversarial relationship between the parties basically [9:30] the president was negotiating with the president and todd blanch was the lawyer for both and we saw [9:37] this when i asked the attorney general who wrote that irs settlement agreement who wrote that one [9:43] paragraph broad expansive get out of jail free for tax crimes language who wrote that and he [9:50] acknowledged he didn't write it and he acknowledged he didn't know who did write it now he thought [9:56] that it might have been written by the department of justice or maybe the irs but he didn't know [10:01] when you read the language of it it looked a lot like it was written by the president's lawyers [10:06] so you have todd blanch signing a agreement of unknown provenance that basically gives his former [10:15] client and i would say his current client clients potentially a hundred million dollars of taxpayer [10:21] money in tax liabilities and obligations he may have incurred and that he could in respect to the slush fund [10:32] represent in prior testimony and again today that the slush fund is dead that he could attribute to [10:39] himself the power to say that when this is supposed to be what he's argued to be a negotiation between [10:46] two adversarial parties how is it that he could speak for the other party if he wasn't on both sides [10:53] of this transaction this too was raised by the court in florida when it sent a letter referral to the [11:00] bar association in new york to look at the ethical or lack of ethical conduct by the attorney general [11:06] so time after time whether it's the irs agreement the slush fund whether it's dismissing [11:11] cases against insurrection insurrectionists whether it's the department's opposition to the release [11:17] of the second report on the mar-a-lago case time after time after time this department under his [11:22] leadership has taken a position that's not in the public interest and the problem is this who is [11:28] representing the american people at the top of the justice department and the answer is presently [11:34] no one no one there was simply a lawyer representing the president of the united states and his personal [11:41] interests and there like therein lies the danger to the american people so uh today was farcical and [11:50] it doesn't take anyone needing to be fully in involved in the law to understand and witness what we saw [12:00] today and and look the first requirement of somebody in a hearing like this when you swear to tell the [12:05] truth is to tell the truth and we even saw him trying to bend the truth or avoid answering questions [12:11] or even worse uh simply not telling the truth so this is just one take of his his lack of qualifications [12:17] this was not a job interview it was a more of a performance review because we've seen the kind of [12:23] leader it's going to be my colleague dick durbin asked him why hasn't he met with uh victims of jeffrey epstein [12:30] and glane maxwell why hasn't he met with them and he said i couldn't i'm bound by the law well any [12:35] first year law student knows that that's just a lie that's just wrong and that's what's frustrating [12:42] about this experience and during my questioning he seemed more concerned with glane maxwell's [12:47] safety than what he did to the survivors of jeffrey epstein when he released their personal [12:55] information their addresses their phone numbers and their images and one has to ask why [13:02] why would he go and have a two-day interview with glane maxwell and then suddenly she shifted into [13:08] the lowest possible security camp against bops borough prisons guidelines why well clearly this [13:16] man is acting more as a shield for donald trump and other powerful people than he is in acting in the [13:22] best interest of what's justice this is just one issue time and time again we have seen that his role [13:32] and his job is not to uphold the law of the united states of america but it's to do the bidding of [13:38] donald trump to be his shield against investigations of his corruption and to be a sword to go after [13:47] people that the public knows have done nothing wrong literally going after an fbi director for for [13:57] playing in the sand so i'm sorry this is a farce this man is clearly not qualified for this job but that [14:06] would be bad enough putting him in this position is dangerous it's dangerous to our democracy it's [14:14] dangerous to victims of crime it's dangerous because he's representing a president that is attacking [14:20] universities attacking law firms that don't bend at his knee attacking my colleagues for doing their [14:28] constitutional duty this should inflame outrage with republicans and democrats and indeed it has bill [14:36] crystal came out against him for how he handled the epstein files former doj alumni appointed by [14:44] republicans have come out against him we have seen people across the political spectrum with the [14:50] exception of my republican colleagues in the senate who are still doing an advanced form of yoga bending [14:56] over backwards to do whatever the president wants them to do so i'm sorry this is a dangerous day [15:04] we're about to confirm someone to the highest law enforcement in the land who's proven that he's [15:09] going to use the law against american people and americans all around this country are going to be [15:15] looking at who has got our back who is going to watch out for us we're trying to put food on the table and [15:23] he's having fancy dinner parties with powerful billionaires when he's supposed to be overseeing their [15:31] mergers who does he represent clearly it's donald trump's agenda and it's not the rule of law and the [15:40] 340 million americans so this day should anger and outrage not partisans but anyone who objectively [15:47] wants this nation to strand for something truth and justice for all its people you know the heart of [15:58] the question many of my colleagues have already referred to it is who does todd blanche work for [16:03] you know there's nothing wrong with the president appointing a friend [16:07] and there's not a question about his competence but the responsibility that that person who is [16:13] appointed is first to the constitution and to the american people it's not to the person who appointed [16:19] him and what we have seen with donald trump is that he will use any power that he has as president [16:27] legitimate or illegitimate to achieve his narrow goals and sometimes it'll be something he wants in [16:33] foreign policy but sometimes it's something he wants for himself and the most telling example is this [16:42] astonishing 10 billion dollar suit that the president of the united states filed against the people of the [16:48] united states now the outcome was inevitable because his personal attorney who had made nine million [16:57] dollars in his private practice from the president was now representing the department of the rars [17:05] in a suit against the president and lo and behold they came out with a 1.76 billion dollar settlement that [17:13] gave total authority to the president and also did give immunity to the president and his family for any obligations [17:21] that they may owe to the taxpayers of the united states there was much made about the lawfare there's [17:31] no definition of lawfare it's in the eye of the beholder there was much made of weaponization there's no legal [17:37] definition senator corner asked that lawfare and weaponization are the political term that's used to [17:46] attack somebody who does something you don't like and todd blanche is all in in the person who decides [17:54] that you have violated lawfare or that you've weaponized your position is the present it's a [18:00] political decision we cannot have a justice department that makes prosecutions of american [18:08] citizens whether they're in office or not on the basis of the political preferences of the president [18:13] todd blanche works for donald trump he does not work for the american people [18:19] thanks for the question any questions yes hey how does one having everything you've said and what [18:26] the judge said about the recent irs agreement it says block blast but are you merely observers [18:35] or what power does congress and the democrats have in congress uh because presumably you can't block [18:44] his confirmation today but what power will you have given what you've said under the constitution we [18:50] have the power of advice and consent in the senate and of course that depends on the votes on the [18:55] floor how many are there and which way they've come down i can't predict what will happen i think [19:01] what we've said here among democratic members is pretty clear what other democrats feel what republicans [19:08] feel about this situation i think the questioning by senator cornyn really got to the heart of the issue [19:16] when it comes to blanche signing that forgiveness of tax liability for the president and his family [19:24] it's an outrage there's nothing like that in history where we've had the president and his [19:29] family and their business interests protected in this way perhaps some republicans be convinced [19:36] yes do you have any sense that republicans minds have been changing or they may be growing more [19:40] concerned um after today's hearing well not particularly but i won't give up i think what you [19:50] find in these hearings is issues emerge and over a period of time they either grow into something [19:55] substantive or wither away and in this situation i think there are a handful of issues that are not [20:02] going to wither away and whether they're persuasive with the republicans we'll have to see last question [20:07] yes [20:20] if republicans do indeed support college what is your message and outreach to independence and republican [20:25] voters about this i think the voters of america including independents and younger voters certainly [20:34] know what happened with the epstein files the links that congress had to go to to force the trump [20:40] administration to even find this basic disclosure as bad as it is it's an indication of cover-up and [20:47] reason let them explain the reason perhaps they have some but i think independent voters have to wonder [20:54] why in the world won't this man who is the acting attorney general sit down with the victims of epstein [20:59] shouldn't he be on their side first i think it's pretty obvious thanks everybody thank you