Senator Whitehouse Would Like To Tell You Exactly What He Thinks Of Todd Blanche

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has written the most comprehensive argument yet against confirming Todd Blanche as Attorney General, published this week in The Contrarian under the headline “Todd Blanche Should Not Be Confirmed.” If you’ve been following our coverage of Blanche’s tenure, very little of it will surprise you. That’s rather the point.

Whitehouse opens with the 10,000-lawyer exodus from the federal government — DOJ alone has shed 21 percent of its attorneys — and places Blanche at the center of the rot. From there, he runs through what is, structurally, a tour of stories we’ve already told you.

On the Epstein files, Whitehouse alleges Blanche secured cushy treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for favorable statements about Trump, a charge that lines up precisely with Senator Whitehouse’s own letter to Blanche and BOP from earlier this month demanding records on Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum-security facility — a transfer that occurred roughly a week after Maxwell spoke favorably of Trump to Blanche personally.

The infamous Trump slush fund also plays a prominent part in the argument against Blanche. Whitehouse notes that Blanche personally signed off on the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” attached to a blanket tax-crime amnesty for Trump and his family, a scheme “so rotten” a Florida federal judge has opened an inquiry into whether DOJ committed fraud on the court. We’ve covered this fund from its child-molester eligibility problem to its official death to the DOJ lawyer who tried to grab his own cut before it folded, and even now, Blanche won’t commit in writing to keeping it dead.

Whitehouse also writes about the credibility hit the DOJ has taken under Blanche’s stewardship:

Decades of honorable government lawyering built that trust; Blanche’s MAGA DOJ has singlehandedly destroyed it. Judges — even those appointed by Trump — are raising red flags, describing DOJ arguments as “pretextual,” “disingenuous,” “bad faith,” “shoddy,” and “unconscionable.” When I was U.S. attorney, any such term used by a judge about our conduct would have prompted action; with Blanche in charge, they’re commonplace. One Trump-appointed judge even described a “concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it.”

That tracks with what we’ve watched play out in real time, including Blanche’s own DOJ getting told to get bent by Judge Brinkema when it tried to wriggle out of her injunction.

Whitehouse closes by quoting A Man for All Seasons — “where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?” — directed at the Republican senators who vote to confirm Blanche anyway. It’s a big swing for an op-ed, but given everything stacked in the preceding paragraphs, not an unearned one.

None of this is likely to change many votes. Senate Democrats were always going to vote against Blanche, en bloc, the same way they did when he was confirmed as Deputy AG 52-46 on a straight party line. What Whitehouse’s piece does instead is hand wavering Republicans — the Tillises and Collinses of the world — a single document that consolidates the entire case against Blanche into one sitting. Add it to the pile next to the New York Times editorial board and even Bill Barr’s own faint-praise endorsement, and the momentum against Blanche keeps building. Whether it’s enough momentum is still very much an open question.

Earlier:

• Senator Whitehouse Is Still Waiting For Todd Blanche To Explain The Ghislaine Maxwell Prison Transfer
• Bill Barr Would Like The Senate To Know: Confirm Todd Blanche Or The Hostage Gets It
• ‘Todd Blanche Is Unfit For Office,’ Says The New York Times Editorial Board
• DOJ Tries To End Slush Fund Suit By Telling Judge Brinkema To Get Bent. Fails.
• 10,000 Federal Lawyers Are Gone And Trump’s Response Basically Confirms Why They Left