Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General of the United States. The Attorney General is supposed to be the people's lawyer, someone whose loyalty is to the Constitution and to the…
Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General of the United States.
The Attorney General is supposed to be the people's lawyer, someone whose loyalty is to the Constitution and to the rule of law, not to any one person--even the President of the United States. But in this administration, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice are focused solely on pleasing one person, one man, no matter the cost to our country.
Lest anybody forget, huge banners like the one displayed here hang outside the Department of Justice, the front door, as pictured here, and the other entrance to the Department of Justice. Every single day, the folks who are supposed to uphold our Constitution and the rule of law walk beneath these banners, reminding them that in this administration, their loyalty is to Donald Trump, not to the people of the United States. One of the people who do that every day and who have demonstrated loyalty to the President over the Constitution is the person whose nomination is pending on this floor today to be the Attorney General.
It is crystal clear from Mr. Blanche's record as Acting Attorney General and before that as Deputy Attorney General that he is still acting like Donald Trump's personal lawyer--a position he held before going to the Justice Department. His record has shown us very clearly that he will continue to put the President's personal interests above the interests of the American people; that when he walks through that door to the great Department of Justice that is supposed to serve justice for the American people, he looks up and he sees Donald Trump.
He was formerly the personal lawyer to Donald Trump, and even now, at the Justice Department, he continues to demonstrate that he puts the President's interests above those in the Constitution and the rule of law.
The Department of Justice has used taxpayer dollars to punish the President's adversaries, to reward his friends, and to pursue the President's personal vendettas.
In a case that I am very familiar with, a Federal judge found that Mr. Blanche's statements about the Department's case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia showed clear evidence of a vindictive prosecution. In other words, the judge found that Todd Blanche and the Department of Justice brought a case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a Federal court because he had exercised his due process rights, to punish him for exercising his rights, so that judge threw out those charges.
Under Mr. Blanche's leadership, Department lawyers have resigned rather than participate in blatant prosecutions, like the prosecutions of James Comey and others.
Career, professional lawyers have resigned rather than participate in abuses of power, like the Department's criminal investigation against Renee Good's partner after the shooting in Minneapolis instead of holding accountable or pursuing accountability for those who killed Renee Good. Think about that. This Department of Justice launched an investigation into the partner of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by DHS agents, instead of investigating the shooting itself--again, to please the dear leader in the White House, not to uphold the rule of law.
We also know that the Department of Justice has lost 10,000 employees since the beginning of fiscal year 2025 and nearly one quarter of its lawyers--lawyers who signed up to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, not serve the dear leader acting through the dear leader's former personal attorney Todd Blanche. Now they are hiring prosecutors with no prior legal experience and asking many of them to sign a pledge supporting not the Constitution but the President of the United States.
We have seen how Mr. Blanche has acted as the President's personal lawyer since he has been at the Justice Department. We know, of course, of the outrageous $1.8 billion slush fund that was created to make payments to the President's political allies. When I asked Mr. Blanche at a hearing if those who assaulted police officers here on Capitol Hill on January 6 would be eligible for those payouts, taxpayer-funded payouts, he wouldn't rule it out. He wouldn't rule that out.
At the same time, he and the Department entered into a sweetheart settlement providing extraordinary tax liability protections to the President and his family and his businesses--essentially a get-out-of- jail-free card for nonpayment of taxes due if that was what had been ultimately found.
Now, after Republican Senators and only after Republican Senators threatened to block his nomination did Mr. Blanche issue an order supposedly rescinding the slush fund and narrowing the scope of those tax protections.
By the way, even if you narrow the scope the way it is supposed to there, the President and his family get essentially a get-out-of-jail- free card for past tax liabilities that may be due.
So this deal is a sham. It is not worth the paper it is written on. It is not written into the law, and nothing prevents the Department from restarting the slush fund once Mr. Blanche is confirmed.
That is not the only example of Mr. Blanche continuing to serve as the President's personal attorney while having the title of ``Acting Attorney General.'' We also see that in his handling of the Epstein files.
During his time at the Justice Department, Mr. Blanche has withheld critical information regarding those files rather than seek justice for the brave survivors who have shared their stories of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.
When Mr. Blanche appeared before the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Department of Justice, Senator Murray and I both asked him that if we connected him with the Epstein survivors, would he meet with them and hear them out?
His answer:
Absolutely.
He promised he would do so if we connected the survivors to him.
Well, we followed up multiple times. Nearly 2 months later, he had not fulfilled the promise he made in that Senate committee hearing. He had still not met with the survivors.
So Senator Murray and I wrote him a letter demanding that he fulfill the promise he made because that should be a bare minimum for someone seeking this post. And it is pretty clear he had zero intent on keeping the promise made in public at that committee hearing until Senator Tillis said that he would not vote to move his nomination out of the committee until Mr. Blanche met with the survivors.
After that threat was made, the meeting happened, but it was clear from reports about the meeting by the survivors that Mr. Blanche did not do so out of respect for them and out of a genuine interest to hear what they had to say but simply to preserve chances of his confirmation, because according to the survivors, it was nothing more than a check-the-box exercise. In fact, they said Mr. Blanche was condescending, that he was rude, and that he was dismissive. They were interrupted and told to ``get to the point.''
Well, someone who can tell the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's horrific crimes to ``get to the point'' is not a person we want defending the American people because a nominee for Attorney General should demonstrate that their loyalty will be to the Constitution and the rule of law and getting justice for everybody in America, including the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, not to the President of the United States.
So I hope we will recognize that if we look at the conduct and actions and record of the Acting Attorney General, we will recognize that he is not suited for this position because his record shows he has not been upholding the rule of law and the Constitution. Instead, he has been doing the business of this one man.
This photo was taken today--taken today. These big banners of Donald Trump have been hanging outside the Department of Justice for a long time, and they send an unmistakable message to people who work inside that they better serve the interests of this
one person. If, instead, there is a conflict between the interests of the people of the United States and this person, this tells them: Serve the interests of the President of the United States.
That is not the job of the Department of Justice, and it is not the job of the Attorney General.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General of the United States.
I yield the floor.
