Trump henchman Todd Blanche in HOT WATER, risking AG confirmation, after SCATHING ruling from judge

[0:01] sister attorney general you are acting today like the president's personal attorney and that's the [0:05] whole problem you've got his whole you have a whole banner of his face hanging over the department of [0:12] justice and you and everybody else walks under it and you are acting like you're his current [0:17] personal attorney you do not belong in this job mr attorney acting attorney general you should [0:24] always and recuse yourself from these issues because you are the president's lawyer you are [0:29] not the lawyer yes you are hi again everyone it's five o'clock in the east trying to make [0:37] smugness great again i guess is his plan that's donald trump's personal lord i'm sorry donald [0:42] trump's current acting attorney general and appointee to be the country's attorney general [0:48] under intense scrutiny this week as he will appear before senate judiciary committee members on [0:53] wednesday for a confirmation hearing todd blanch can't afford to lose even one republican on this [1:00] or else his nomination to be the official and no longer the acting attorney general will be dead [1:07] today a development that further calls into question whether todd blanch's true allegiance is [1:13] to donald trump who he represented as his personal criminal defense attorney or to the country question [1:19] that has been looming over todd blanch since he joined the trump administration judge kathleen [1:24] williams ruled that donald trump's lawsuit against the irs which todd blanch settled in may was brought [1:30] for quote improper purposes she writes quote the nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the [1:36] parties and counsel from its filing makes plain that this was an attempt to use the court to provide [1:42] some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the president [1:48] and to earmark billions of dollars from american taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in [1:53] the law on the context of that filing the new york times writes this quote the decision by the judge judge [2:00] williams who sits in federal district court in miami did not explicitly kill the deal that trump had [2:05] worked out with his own government to receive what amounted to amnesty from irs investigations but the [2:11] scathing ruling exposed the negotiations between trump's personal lawyers and senior officials at the [2:17] justice department for what she says they were backroom dealings that did not arise from a legitimate [2:23] legal process the judge judge williams ordered rule 11 sanctions against trump's lawyers in the case todd [2:29] blanch the acting attorney general and the nominee to be the country's attorney general is among them [2:37] rule 11 sanctions are basically fouls or penalties imposed on lawyers when they file frivolous lawsuits and [2:44] abuse the judicial process but this means is that two days before todd blanch heads up to capitol hill [2:51] to try to bamboozle republicans and be confirmed as the nation's top law enforcement official he himself [2:58] is staring down rather unprecedented potential disciplinary action for being a bad faith actor [3:04] in court that is where we begin the hour with the founder of the public integrity project and former [3:09] special counsel in the justice department brandon bellew also joining us publisher of the bulwark [3:14] sarah longwell is back plus political analyst former senator clare mccaskill joins us um brendan your [3:20] thoughts i think it's a real sign of how the judiciary is thinking about the department of justice right [3:27] now you know doj still has the same name it still has the same building but in terms of what it stands [3:33] for how it works and how it's perceived by courts it's just a radically different institution than it was [3:39] 24 months ago um i think it's frankly very encouraging that judge williams was as aggressive as she was both [3:46] in directing uh todd blanch for potential bar sanctions but also for the amici the amicus brief [3:53] judges who submitted a really important filing of that and all credit to norm eisen and his and the [3:59] legal team that was behind that um uh ordered that they can recoup their attorney's fees here which i think [4:05] really lays the foundation for judges ordering monetary fines from the department of justice [4:11] when they act like this so at some level it's a very sad indictment of where the department of justice [4:17] is at another level i think it's a hopeful sign of how courts are starting to reckon with the reality [4:23] of where we are now and hopefully present something of a roadmap for what they can do in the future [4:28] i mean brendan one of the sanctions for breaking rule 11 as you said could be monetary [4:33] the other could be pro bono work what if todd blanch is ordered to work for you [4:39] i think that's extraordinarily unlikely uh i also think we you know try to be pretty selective in in [4:44] the lawyers that we work with uh and their legal skills but i think you know i think the the issue here [4:50] is you know they have referred him for you know potential um uh sanctioned by bar committees [4:56] candidly bar committees are really not very active in these sorts of highly charged political disputes so [5:02] i don't think your viewers should really expect much in the way of action not that this isn't any [5:07] shade on on the bar committees but i think they are really really protective of their jurisdictions [5:13] and don't want to be seen as political actors here even if nothing particular results in terms of [5:19] punishments for blanche or punishments for the other lawyers here it really does send a message about [5:24] the department's credibility at the moment and that's something that really has a ripple effect not just in [5:30] this court but in all courts in the united states and i think it's going to make it much harder [5:34] for blanche and the department of justice to do its job generally so sarah we are so far down the [5:42] rabbit hole that we're talking about the odds of confirming someone who is literally being called out for [5:48] sanctions maybe maybe not monetary maybe maybe not pro bono work by a judge in florida that is where we are [5:57] and if this isn't the bottom i i know i've eaten these words every time i've i've said it i do not [6:02] know what is um you have a brilliant um strategy for democrats on quote torpedoing todd blanche's [6:09] hearing you write this quote when voters scroll through their social media feeds after the hearing [6:14] democrats should ensure that they get clip after clip of todd blanche squirming to justify his handling [6:20] of the jeffrey epstein files they should be reminded of the sweetheart deal todd blanche gave to jeffrey [6:26] epstein's co-conspirator galaine maxwell sending her to federal facility equipped with puppies and yoga [6:32] they should be informed of the discussions todd blanche helped lead in the white house situation [6:37] room trying to figure out how little of the epstein files to release todd blanche will struggle to [6:42] explain himself because much of his conduct has been inexplicable as anything other than him being [6:47] absolutely willing to bend or break the law for donald trump which is disqualifying for the nation's [6:52] top law enforcement official explain look i don't know if we're going to be able to convince republicans [7:01] not to give donald trump what he wants because they always do and look i they're under no circumstances [7:09] should todd blanche be confirmed by the senate of the united states uh for legal all the the ways that he [7:16] has attacked the rule of law the ways that he has already weaponized his role in the department of [7:20] justice like you could tick through so many reasons but the reason i wrote the piece is that absent being [7:28] able to really convince republicans there's an opportunity here to go on offense in the court of [7:34] public opinion on something that matters to people left right and center i cannot tell you how often it's [7:40] comes up in focus groups about frustration that the epstein files have not yet been released that there are [7:47] still millions of troves uh of epstein files that the american public despite congress passing a law [7:55] saying that they must release them still don't have access to and it is todd blanche who has been presiding [8:02] over that cover-up right down to the sweetheart deal for gislaine maxwell and this is something the american [8:09] public is paying attention to it is something they understand it is something that they can put pressure [8:15] sort of public relations public opinion pressure on republican senators who do not want the whiff of [8:22] the epstein cover-up on them and let me assure you any senator who approves of todd blanche is approving [8:31] a further cover-up in the epstein saga that is what that is what the senate especially the democrats have an [8:38] obligation to remind the american public of and i worry sometimes democrats can get really caught up [8:43] in the weeds and the minutiae uh of some of this other stuff um but this is the kind of thing that [8:49] will really matter to americans and may have a chance may have a chance of derailing his confirmation [8:57] um and if it doesn't do that though it does sort of hand him back the backpack that he carried into [9:04] this job as much as pam bondi was the face of the pr debacle he's the architect of the actual screw [9:10] up in terms of complying with the law the transparency act um that passed congress let me show you what [9:16] one of the ads might look like this is an ad that you made sarah for home of the brave [9:22] it isn't a crime to party with mr epstein meet todd blanche the deputy attorney general of the united [9:29] states and the guy who oversaw the release of the epstein files how'd that go two million epstein pages [9:35] still haven't been released and blanche transferred epstein's co-conspirator glane maxwell to a cushy [9:41] prison camp with puppies and pilates oh and now he wants to add attorney general to his profile [9:48] this isn't a resume to award tell your senators don't confirm todd blanche i mean you had me at [9:57] puppies and yoga um talk about why this works based on all your um i know now thousands and thousands [10:04] and thousands of hours of focus groups are you know i think one of the things that voters decided [10:10] that they they thought was true about donald trump was that he was transparent in some way he was [10:16] going to tell you all of the ways that the government was taking advantage of you and so [10:21] voters really saw him even though they knew he lied as a guy who tells the truth um but the one thing [10:27] that comes up over and over and over again in the focus groups is confusion and anger about the [10:33] fact that the epstein files have not been released and let's be let's be clear pam bondy got tossed out [10:40] in part because epstein was becoming a pr debacle for them they held a meeting in the situation room [10:48] with todd blanche with the vice president of the united states because they were so concerned about the [10:54] impact that the epstein saga was having on trump's presidency trump's own pollster tony fabrizio [11:01] pointed out that when he did a series of focus groups he found that republican voters were still [11:06] very upset about the fact that the epstein files haven't been released and so i think that anybody [11:11] who is looking to both shine a light on the intense corruption of todd blanche that the american public [11:18] can understand the tags into a story that they have been following they should focus on his role in the [11:25] epstein cover-up which goes right down to him personally meeting and being a part of the sweetheart [11:31] deal for ghislaine maxwell they should bring that up over and over and over again because the american [11:36] public understands it