“I want the Senate to vote against Todd Blanche for Attorney General. He helped set up a fund to pay the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6. He also helped write a legal deal to protect President Trump and his family from being charged with tax crimes.”

“Mr. President, I am nearing the end of my Senate term, and I am reflecting on some historic events which I have witnessed at this table, at this desk. One of the most historic I remember--and specifically the date--January 6, 2021. The reason why that day was important was that the votes all across America had been counted to see who was elected President in the 2020 election, and the process involved certification by the House and the Senate of the electoral votes that were to be counted. In the past, it has been almost a pro forma event, hardly noticed by anyone. But on January 6, 2021, it was much different--much different. The Presiding Officer of the Senate for that electoral vote count is the Vice President of the United States; in this case, it was Vice President Pence. There was more security than usual in the Capitol Building. To those who are here today witnessing this session and visiting the Capitol, you are lucky. You are protected by one of the best security forces, police forces, in the Nation, the Capitol Hill Police. Most Americans don’t know much about them. Those of us who serve in Congress know a lot about them. These are men and women who keep you safe and me safe in the Capitol Building and make sure that the visitors have peace of mind when they come and go. We want to maintain the availability of this building to visitors from certainly the United States, but from all around the world. And these men and women--some in uniform, some in ordinary dress--make sure that happens. Well, on January 6, 2021, there was a special emphasis on security. The reason: It was not only a historic event with Members of Congress in their chairs and the Vice President of the United States presiding over the Senate. There was also a rally going on downtown by the outgoing President of the United States, Donald Trump, at the end of his first term. He had summoned his supporters and friends to come for a rally down by the White House and the Washington Monument that day. No coincidence. It was an attempt to put pressure on Congress not to count the electoral votes. You see, the President then and now had this fiction in his mind that he actually won the election. He was only off by 7 million votes--that is how much he lost it by. But he kept filing lawsuits and making protests and arguing that he should be President again. At one point, he dispatched the thousands--thousands--of people that he had summoned to Washington to leave the Washington Monument area and to march on the Capitol, and they did. So we were sitting inside with the knowledge that these thousands of people were coming up to our building here, the Capitol Building, where we did business on this historic day. We didn’t quite know what they would do when they arrived. But if you witness the videotapes from that day, draw your own conclusions. They tried to storm the Capitol. They broke through locked doors, crashed through windows to come into the building. At approximately 10 minutes after 2 o’clock in the afternoon on January 6, 2021, I was seated at this desk. Vice President Pence was presiding, and I noticed something curious: Those doors opened and members of the Secret Service came in and grabbed--literately grabbed-- the Vice President to pull him out of that chair; took him out that door. And here we sat with no announcement, nothing, but we knew something was going on outside with this rally that had been directed up this way. In a few minutes, a representative of the Capitol Police spoke to us in the Chamber and said: Stay calm. Stay where you are. We are going to make the Senate Chamber a safe place for you to stay no matter what happens in the rest of the building. So some of us relaxed in our chairs and looked around and waited for the next development. The next development took about 10 minutes. Mr. President, 10 minutes later, the Capitol Police came and said: Disregard that earlier alert, leave in an orderly fashion, file through those doors, and follow us to a safe location. So we abandoned the Senate Chamber and the Capitol and left to go to a building nearby and wait out this ordeal, which was going on in the Senate. What happened you can witness yourself on videotape. It is all there. About 150 of our Capitol Police were assaulted by these demonstrators-- some seriously injured, others pushed to the brink psychologically, which led to their deaths a day or two later. It was a horrible scene. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that we were able to return to the Senate to complete our business with the electoral vote. What followed from that with the new President was an attempt to investigate what happened that day and who should be held responsible. There was nothing extraordinary about that. Anyone who did damage to this great building or the people in it obviously should be held accountable. And so the largest investigation in the history of the Department of Justice and the FBI started. At the end of the day, almost 1,500 individuals were charged with a crime, and they were convicted. Some of them paid a fine, some served brief periods of time, and others more serious offenses depending on what they did. That was the reality of what happened. Fast-forward four years, and what happened next? President Trump was reelected. And with the power under the Constitution to pardon those who committed crime, on his first day in office in his second term, President Trump gave a full and unconditional pardon to every one of the convicted demonstrators who stormed this building. If you remember the scenes afterwards, it wasn’t just an orderly procession of people visiting this building. They crashed through doors. They broke windows. They did their darndest to cause as much damage as possible. C-SPAN, which televises what happened here, kept the cameras running, and we were able to see them scramble into the Senate Chamber, pose for pictures sitting in the chair of the Presiding Officer, and riffle through our desks. I watched as some person--I still don’t know who it was--went through my desk to look and see if there were some things that he could take that day. I don’t know whether he did or not. But that is the sort of thing that went on for 4 or 5 hours while an effort was made to mobilize police and state troopers and others to reclaim the Capitol Building from the demonstrators. The reason I bring up this event years later is because there is an important issue to be voted on this week by the U.S. Senate, and that is the choice of the next Attorney General of the United States. The Acting Attorney General is Todd Blanche, who was President Trump’s personal lawyer when he was charged with crimes and who has been Deputy Attorney General for months now. He is seeking a full-time position. One of the items of controversy is pretty easy to explain. President Trump believes--and Todd Blanche believed at one point--that the people who attacked the Capitol, the people who breached the Capitol, who crashed through the doors, broke down the windows, threatened individuals inside, should receive financial compensation for doing it. Financial compensation. And you say to yourself: They got a full, unconditional pardon by President Trump. Now they want money too? And the answer is not only yes, but, unfortunately, they have done it with some pride. The Trump administration proposed an Anti-Weaponization Fund. And just to give it a cute little twist, they appropriated $1,776 billion for that purpose. Well, it didn’t go over very well with Congress because as we read this decree by the Trump administration, people said: Wait a minute. We are giving money to people who were convicted of a crime of attacking the Capitol, disrupting the business of the Senate, injuring 149 Capitol policemen? We are going to give them not only a pardon, but some sort of financial compensation? That was the plan: The Anti-Weaponization Fund. And who was the person who executed that plan? Todd Blanche, the person who is seeking to become the next full-time Attorney General of the United States. The controversy involving that particular proposal is well-known. Not only was there a bad reaction among Democrats to this idea but many Republicans as well. Some of them kept their opposition behind closed doors. I understand. But others were very vocal about it. In fact, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said they want in writing, from Todd Blanche, a promise that he would never create this fund to reward cop beaters and demonstrators in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It went forward in the Senate Judiciary Committee and the negotiations between two Republican Senators and Todd Blanche continued until the beginning of this week when it was announced they had reached an agreement. Sadly, that agreement--the so-called agreement not to create the Anti-Weaponization Fund--is written in a way it wouldn’t pass law school Contracts 101. There is no signature on any of these pages of promises when it comes to future activity. They say: We are rescinding the previous order, but there is nothing to stop a new order from taking place. That is a gaping hole in the logic and the effectiveness of any of these documents. We should have clear indications from the parties to that lawsuit that both sides agree; that would include the President of the United States, who was a party to the lawsuit that led up to this. But they can’t bring it together because the President doesn’t believe that the Anti-Weaponization Fund should go away. He said publicly over and over again he believes in it, wants to do it, wants to give the demonstrators money. Todd Blanche thinks he has taken care of this problem, but he has not produced any documentation to make that point clear. Secondly, there was a provision in a lawsuit. Now, here is what the lawsuit is all about: The President sued the IRS and Treasury arguing that they disclosed his income tax returns without his permission. They arrested the man who actually did it--they caught him--and he was prosecuted, as he should be. He broke the law. He knew he was breaking the law when he disclosed the President’s income tax returns. The President sued the IRS and Treasury for billions of dollars-- billions--because they disclosed his income tax return. I have completed quite a few years of public service. I disclose my income tax return every year without fail as a Member of Congress and the Senate. I am not posing for holy pictures; I am just trying to tell you it isn’t that big a deal if you follow the law. Do you know what the settlement of the Trump lawsuit was for disclosing his income tax returns? Part of the settlement said--get this now, and Todd Blanche is the draftsman of this as well--part of it said neither the President, his family, or any of the companies in his Trump empire business can be held for violating any tax crimes in the United States. How would you like that? Get-out-of-jail-free card. And that was part of the agreement, and it should be contested. If we say no one in America is above the law, how in the world can you justify doing this for the Trump family and their businesses? And we know this President deals in big numbers when it comes to income. His first year in office--estimates--between $1.4 and $2 billion in the President’s first year in office of his second term--$2 billion. How did he do it? Well, you won’t be surprised to know that there are cryptocurrency fingerprints all over this deal. The President made hundreds of millions of dollars off of a meme coin or some contraption that comes out of the cryptocurrency world. That is the reality. And who was overseeing this operation? Todd Blanche, the man who wants to be the No. 1 law enforcement officer in the United States of America. Well, I will tell you, I am not going to go much longer because I see some of my colleagues are gathering, and they want to speak on this issue as well. This is a serious mistake for the Senate to approve Todd Blanche as the next Attorney General. If there was ever a moment in history when we need an Attorney General above reproach who is clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government, it is right now. The history of this era will be written, and it will be a shameful history for those who are empowering this man, Todd Blanche, to take his personal representation of this President to the highest possible level as he becomes the next Attorney General. I beg my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: I think I know how many of you feel privately, but I know you are afraid to cross this President. He has been guilty of retribution many times in the past, and he would be on this. But don’t be in the history books on the wrong side when it comes to this issue. Come out against corruption; come out for the prosecution of corporate fraud; come out for changing the current situation in the United States to one that is more respectful of the law and more respectful of the families and voters who create this democracy. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the nomination of Todd Blanche as the next Attorney General of the United States. I yield the floor.”

“I urge the Senate to vote against confirming Todd Blanche. He acts like Donald Trump's personal lawyer instead of an independent leader for the Department of Justice. He denies the 2020 election results, protected Trump while mishandling records about Jeffrey Epstein, tried to give Trump tax immunity, and plans to restrict abortion nationwide.”

“Election deniers have no place on the bench or in the Department of Justice. And, in fact, in response to my submitted question relating to the 2020 election, Todd Blanche refused to state that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and he stood by his prior statements perpetuating the Big Lie. The through line here is whatever Donald Trump says, Todd Blanche does. He will do anything, say anything, conceal anything that serves Donald Trump’s interests. Now, in some ways, the most tragic illustration of this through line is Todd Blanche’s treatment of the Epstein survivors. Let’s remember, he showed us again who he was when he revictimized those survivors by completely botching the release of the Epstein files. He failed to redact the survivors’ personal information and defied the Epstein Files Transparency Act by redacting unnecessary information. Why? To shield Donald Trump. That was the purpose of the meeting in the Situation Room when the threat to release additional files was to Donald Trump because he was mentioned in those files. And the Situation Room meeting, which is recounted in ``Regime Change,’’ a recent book by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, showed clearly the effort was not to do justice for the survivors but to protect Donald Trump. He refused to meet with the survivors. He spent 2 whole days with Ghislaine Maxwell. Why? Well, we don’t really know because there was certainly no information useful to any investigation that emerged from it. What did happen was that she was transferred to a cushy prison camp and has remained silent. And when he finally agreed to meet with the survivors, they described it as demoralizing and degrading. In fact, they called it gaslighting. He protected Donald Trump at the expense of those survivors, and one of the most heinous sexual abuse and trafficking rings in American history has yet to produce the kinds of convictions necessary--the convictions in court, the prosecutions of the coconspirators and others complicit and legally responsible. That is not the conduct of an Attorney General; it is the conduct of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. That is the through line. He certainly was acting as Donald Trump’s lawyer when he issued two documents recently, supposedly ending the contract that was involved in the agreement on Donald Trump’s purported, so-called lawsuit seeking damages from the revelation of his personal tax information. We know that two of our colleagues, Senators Cornyn and Tillis, said that they needed something in writing, but what they got in writing was virtually meaningless in showing that either the slush fund--the so- called anti-weaponization fund--or the tax immunity was in any way materially changed. In fact, the document that purported to say that the slush fund was dead, in reality, is a sham. It is a fraud on the U.S. Senate, just as he allegedly committed a fraud on the court in Florida. The reason is quite simply that there was a contract here. The agreement produced that contract. The agreement was between Donald Trump and the United States. Donald Trump did not in any way forgo or renounce any rights under that contract. It is still binding. He could go into court tomorrow and force it to establish the $1.8 billion thug fund. And, likewise, the immunity agreement, which is unprecedented, worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump, tax immunity from audits, in effect giving him a free pass for everything that occurred before this immunity, negotiated by Todd Blanche with only Todd Blanche’s signature on it--the limiting of that immunity from tax audits to Donald Trump, his sons, his organization, worth hundreds of millions--unprecedented, unconscionable, and unacceptable from an Attorney General of the United States, dealing with potential tax violations of law, signing away tax liability no matter how serious it might be. It is unprecedented, and no one else but the President would even think of trying to get it in this way, under these circumstances. And he was able to get it only because Todd Blanche acted as his personal lawyer, not as Attorney General of the United States. Senator Cornyn himself put it well at the hearing about this contract for the slush fund: Todd Blanche answered in the affirmative. He well knows that the document that he prepared and released does nothing to change that contractual obligation. The conversation that Todd Blanche had recently, talking to individuals interested in reproductive rights, I think is extremely revealing and important. In a private call just last week, he said the quiet part out loud; that he would work to restrict abortion in every single State all across the country. He wants to block States enacting their own policies and laws. He wants to make abortion-access States follow the laws of abortion-ban States. In short, he wants to strip Americans of their right to choose and strip States of their right to govern. That is not the conduct or statement of an Attorney General of the United States carrying out and respecting the Constitution; it is fidelity to an ideologue--the President--who wants to impress his base, not represent the American people. Todd Blanche showed us who he was when he ducked and dodged my question about deep-sixing an investigation into possible pay-to-play commutation of a federally convicted felon, David Gentile. David Gentile reportedly paid $2.5 million to a broker to obtain clemency. That clemency robbed his victims of nearly $16 million in restitution. When a U.S. attorney tried to investigate--the Eastern District of New York, U.S. attorney--Mr. Blanche reportedly killed the probe. That is not the behavior of an Attorney General; that is Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. So there is a powerful case against this nominee. I am under no illusion. We have seen this movie before. We saw it again when my two colleagues in effect caved--voted for his nomination yesterday. I am not here with rose-colored glasses. I know that Donald Trump will come down hard on any Republican colleague who has the temerity to say: We want a lawyer who represents the people, a lawyer who has fidelity to the Constitution and to the United States of America above the President, an Attorney General who will follow the law and insist that no one is above the law and no one is beneath it, an Attorney General who is true to the trust that we expect and to respect. Todd Blanche might be the President’s lawyer, but we don’t have to be the President’s Senate. I urge my colleagues to vote against this confirmation and remain true to what we should be in upholding the trust and the Constitution of the United States. I yield the floor.”

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“I oppose Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. He was Donald Trump's personal lawyer, and he still acts like it at the Justice Department. He uses the department to punish the President's enemies, protect the President's family from taxes, and put the President's interests ahead of the Constitution.”

“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: 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.”

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“I do not want the Senate to confirm Todd Blanche. He is loyal to the President instead of the American people, and he has used his power to protect the President from taxes. The Senate must stop confirming the President's nominees and start checking his power.”

“Mr. President, I listened to the presentation by my colleague from Maryland and agree with everything he said. And the heart of the question is whether the person who has been nominated to serve as Attorney General will serve the people of the United States or will he serve the President to whom he has indicated blind, complete, servile loyalty? And the recitation of facts about what Mr. Blanche has done in this incredibly important job as Acting Attorney General has made clear what his client is, who that client is. There is no place at the top of the Justice Department for a person who pledges personal loyalty to anyone other than the American people. But, you know, the reality here is, the President won’t appoint anybody to the Attorney General’s position who won’t act as his personal attorney. And there is a sadness that I have about this whole story that is before us. It is the story of a person who when he was a young man, a young attorney, Todd Blanche was extraordinarily talented, was very idealistic, was a prosecutor’s prosecutor, and who did abide by and uphold the rule of law. He became a new person in service of a President that I believe is corrupt. Two billion dollars of income to the President of the United States in his first year raises more than a mild question. And this person now to be Attorney General, in his Acting Attorney General role, essentially provided tax immunity to the President and to all of his children, family, and affiliates. It is totally outrageous. When you say it, you can’t even believe the words are coming out of your mouth. It is absolutely unprecedented. It has nothing to do with the way public business should be conducted. But Mr. Blanche, who has considerable talents, has used those talents to enable and to facilitate and to cover up and to revise and accommodate the corrupt goals of a President who, I believe, is corrupt. And, by the way, as I mentioned earlier, that is whom the President wants. He wants someone who is going to do his work for him unquestioned, no matter what. But, you know, there is another question that belongs right here in the U.S. Senate. Is there no line that the U.S. Senate will not allow this President to cross? The Senate confirmed Bondi; it confirmed Hegseth; it confirmed Patel; it confirmed Noem; and we are about to confirm Blanche. The President is abusing his authority, in my view, in every day and in every way. And that is shame on him, but the U.S. Senate is failing to use its authority, its power on any day or in any way. Shame on the U.S. Senate. Should not the U.S. Senate use its advice and consent authority to demand competence and integrity? Did the Senate do that with Bondi, with Noem, with Hegseth, with Patel, and now with Blanche? Should not the U.S. Senate use its taxing authority to stop tariffs that the vast majority of this body believes is hurting the American people and is not the right of the Executive to impose? Should not the U.S. Senate use its constitutional power of the purse to stop the invasion by President Trump into the power of the purse? And should not the U.S. Senate use its constitutional authority over the awesome power to declare war and stop this illegal war in Iran that, in fact, President Trump is losing? The President is abusing his authority. We are failing to use ours. We can stop capitulating today by rejecting this nomination. I yield the floor.”

“I oppose Todd Blanche to lead the Department of Justice. He mishandled records on Jeffrey Epstein, leaked private information about victims, and hid documents that accused Donald Trump. He also faces questions from a judge about lying to a court. He is not fit for the job.”

“Mr. President, I am here today to join the chorus of opposition to Todd Blanche’s nomination as Attorney General of the United States. Things that Republicans have purported to care about are disastrous with this guy. Pam Bondi put the blame directly on Todd Blanche for the Department of Justice’s foulup with the Epstein files. That foulup was pretty deadly serious for the women who were victims, who had managed to keep that fact private until Todd Blanche and the DOJ fouled that up and put out their names, put out their addresses, put out their photographs, and in some cases put out photographs with very little clothing on--complete disruption of the lives of the victims of Epstein’s depravity, complete incompetence from a document- production point of view. And on the other side, this guy actually participated in the Epstein coverup. Remember that there was a witness who spoke to FBI agents about having been assaulted by Donald Trump when she was about 14 years old, physically assaulted and sexually assaulted. She spoke to the FBI at least four times. Those four times were recorded in FBI 302s. A 302 is the FBI name for the witness statement that the agents write up after an interview. So four times this woman has been interviewed about what had happened to her as a girl. Three of those 302s specifically mentioned Donald Trump. In the disclosure that Todd Blanche made under the Epstein files law, the only one of the four that got disclosed was the one that didn’t mention Donald Trump. That ought to be disqualifying right there. Luckily, some very sharp investigators realized through, like, gaps in Bates stamp numbers that documents were missing and that the three 302s had not been disclosed. And so Blanche was forced to cough those up. But behind a 302 come the agent notes. And there are still 37 pages of documents relating to that that are still suppressed, that are still covered up, that look to be the agents’ notes, which should have been disclosed. So the coverup continued with respect to allegations against Donald Trump. Where else did the coverup continue? Well, the Treasury Department sent to the Department of Justice what are called suspicious activity reports. A suspicious activity report is what you get when international banking transactions look like something funny is afoot, look like there is, for instance, money laundering going on. In this case, it was money laundering and human- trafficking concerns that provoked the suspicious activity reports. You don’t have to be a genius investigator to look at a suspicious activity report and deduce it might have something to do with some suspicious activity. It is the title of the report, for Pete’s sake. Billions of dollars of transactions were behind those suspicious activity reports. How many were investigated by the Blanche Department of Justice? Zero. Turned a complete blind eye to that whole aspect of the Epstein files, even though the suspicious activity reports were right in front of them. And then he goes running down to Tallahassee to interview Epstein’s comrade-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell. Did he use that interview to develop any new information, to go after people who were culpable in the Epstein files? No. He used that interview to extract exculpatory comments from her about Donald Trump. Oh, that he was a perfect gentleman. And the next thing you know, she is rewarded with a transfer to a Club Fed-type prison. What is the excuse for that? Oh, she was at risk. We felt she was in danger. Well, look, I have been around law enforcement for a long time, and this is the first time I have ever seen a prisoner allegedly in danger be transferred to a less secure setting to solve the problem of danger. Right? You move the prisoner to a more secure setting, not a less secure setting. It makes no sense. So in the Epstein files, Todd Blanche’s fingerprints are all over the screwup and the coverup. Then we move on to the slush fund and the Trump family tax fraud amnesty, which was cooked up in a deal surrounding a Federal court proceeding, which was such a mess that the judge in that Federal court proceeding has gone back to look at what the heck happened. She was looking at whether something happened called fraud upon the court. You probably haven’t heard of fraud upon the court. It is unusually rare. It is a thermonuclear ethics accusation. We have looked. In the history of the Department of Justice, fraud on the court has not even been alleged against any senior DOJ official--ever. Ever. And here you have a court that opened a proceeding, an inquiry, into whether or not there was fraud on the court, and that is still pending. There is still every reason to believe that Blanche may be found culpable for putting a fraud on the court together to cook up the slush fund tax amnesty scheme. That is pretty unheard of. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon in this Blanche Department of Justice. There is a cascade of criticism from Federal courts about misconduct by this Department of Justice--misconduct that is unprecedented. I will tell you that I was the U.S. attorney for the District of Rhode Island. If judges had used words like this about my attorneys’ conduct in their courtrooms, there would have been consequences. At a minimum, there would have been staff meetings. There could have been referrals to the Office of Professional Responsibility. There could have been apologies required to the court. There could have been a reboot, internal office discipline of what is going on with this case. But when a judge says that the government’s argument is disingenuous, when the judge says that the government’s argument is a pretext for something else, when the judge says that the government has engaged in bad faith, each one of those is a four-alarm fire word. In medicine, there are things that they call never events, things that should never happen in a hospital that you protect against, these are never event words coming from Federal judges. And yet they are commonplace in the corrupted Department of Justice run by Todd Blanche. As to his complicity in the Epstein files coverup, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Epstein survivors to Senators Tillis and Cornyn be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks. With respect to the destruction of the Department of Justice that he has wrought, I would also ask that we add George Will’s column called ``Against Todd Blanche.’’ I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Against Todd Blanche’’ be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:”

“I want to add a news article to the official record. It is about federal judges calling the conduct of Donald Trump's Justice Department unlawful and unethical.”

“And with respect to this litany of criticism of the honesty of the Blanche Department of Justice, I would like to add a ProPublica article entitled ``Federal Judges Chastise Trump’s Justice Department for `Unlawful,’ `Unethical’ and `Unseemly’ Conduct,’’ whose first sentence begins: I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Federal Judges Chastise Trump’s Justice Department for `Unlawful,’ `Unethical’ and `Unseemly’ Conduct’’ be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Federal Judges Chastise Trump’s Justice Department for ``Unlawful,’’”

“I want two articles from The Economist added to the official record. They argue that Todd Blanche is hurting the Department of Justice.”

“And then this isn’t just a problem in American legal communities. There is a global magazine called The Economist magazine, which, by the way, does not run liberal. It is a fairly conservative publication. The cover story in the July 18 The Economist is a picture of the Department of Justice logo and the title ``Degradation in progress.’’ I ask that The Economist magazine article--there are actually two. One is the opening article that they lead with before they get to the main article; and the second is the main article--the two articles about the degradation of the Department of Justice under Todd Blanche be added to the Record as well. I ask unanimous consent that the articles entitled ``Degradation in progress’’ and ``The rule of one’’ be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:”

“I oppose Todd Blanche's nomination. Federal judges have repeatedly called his Department of Justice dishonest and incompetent, and courts no longer trust its work. He also mishandled the Epstein files and faced a court inquiry for fraud.”

“Last, there is a group called Just Security, which keeps track of what goes on in Federal courts. This is a binder of the cases that they have put together in which a Federal judge is harshly criticizing the integrity or the competence of the Department of Justice. This binder, frankly, should not exist. This is two-sided, by the way. These many cases--it is just astounding. I am not going to ask that this all be put into the Record. But I will note that if you look at justsecurity.org, you can look at their report published on March 19, 2026. It gets regularly updated. And if you want to go through it, you can see truly appalling criticisms by Federal judges of every appointment background against incompetence and dishonesty by the Blanche Department of Justice. Where that really hits the road is with something called the presumption of regularity. You might not know what the presumption of regularity is, but it is a benefit that the government enjoys--that as a matter of policy, the Federal judiciary has determined that the Federal Government is generally so honest and competent that its proceedings will be given the presumption of regularity that the benefit of the doubt will go to the Department of Justice lawyers and to the government Agencies involved. Unless the adversary can prove otherwise, courts will presume that the government has done the right thing. And over and over again, we have seen judges say that presumption of regularity is now shot because there is so much dishonesty and incompetence coming out of the Department of Justice. That is unprecedented. There are hundreds of other reasons to vote against this most reprehensible Attorney General nominee in American history, but the very specific ones about his complicity in the Epstein files screwup and coverup, his being the first senior Department of Justice official in the history of the United States to face a fraud on the courts inquiry, where the judge already decided that the proceeding was a sham and that the parties were in collusion with each other and that the whole thing was done in bad faith, and that that is not an isolated incident--that is part of a pattern of incompetence and dishonesty out of the Department of Justice that has never before happened in the United States of America. If my Republican colleagues want to get behind that--if they are cool with an Attorney General who has that record--that is on you. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:”