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The Bulwark
BREAKING: Senate Grills Todd Blanche on Epstein, Slush Fund During Confirmation Hearing
00:23:30
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, manager at the Bulwark. And I am joined by the one, the only Senator Peter Welch. No, Bill. Crystal, what's going on, man? How you doing? We are watching the Todd Blanche confirmation hearings right now. You can see it. We're not going to play with video, with audio because we want to talk about what's happened. But we might dip in and out, Bill, were I'd say three fourths the way through this thing. Anything stand out to you at all?
- [00:30]
B
Yeah, but three fourths the way through his testimony, Blanche's testimony today. Then there's some witnesses to our, one of whom is an Epstein survivor. I think that might be more interesting than Todd Blanch's testimony. What stands out to me is that I don't think they've done much damage to him. I'm not sure it's possible to in these hearings. 10 minutes. The witness gets the filibuster a little bit. Blanche is prepared. He knows all the questions basically that are coming. All the Republicans, half the senators are giving him softballs basically with maybe the exception of John Corden. And the Democrats all have different points to make. And so they make a point and Blanche sort of answers it. Maybe there's one follow up. This is not like, I mean they would have all been better off in my opinion. But they never do this to take 10 minutes. Focus on one very detailed, one thing. Focus on the Maxwell meeting. Focus on the moving of her. Exactly what happened. Go through details, read them quotes, don't sort of paraphrase things. Which then allows Blanche to say, well, I don't think that's exactly what the President said or what I said. Not great. Not great. For those of us who think Blanche should not be Attorney General, I don't think we made any, we gained any ground today. Do you think?
- [01:32]
A
No. I mean, so let's just recap. So Blanche obviously is acting ag so he's serving in this role. Trump has formally nominated him.
- [01:41]
B
Right.
- [01:42]
A
And now he's obviously getting his confirmation hearing. There were a couple real issues heading into this hearing among them and some of them came up and we'll get to that. The weaponization fund, which was what was agreed to as part of some settlement with Trump suing his own government, the IRS, they had this 1.776 billion dollar fund that they were going to give as reparations to the J6ers. It also that deal included immunity from IRS auditing for Trump and his family prior to the leaking of his tax returns. That was a Big deal. And it did come up. The other big deal was obviously the Epstein files, which Todd Blanche was instrumental in orchestrating what you could categorize as a cover up. That was a big deal. And then I guess the other sort of macro deal here is just the weaponization of DOJ writ large. And that gets down to the pardoning, it gets down to the selective prosecutions, things like that. I think my takeaway is your takeaway, which is that when they were given the chance to give qu to question Todd Blanch, Democrats kind of were scattershot. They jumped between a couple of these different things. There was a couple questions about antitrust. There wasn't like sort of a narrative that they kept going back to. Very rarely if ever did they reference a colleague's inquiries to like expand on that. And so I don't know if this is an issue of prior coordination. I don't know if this is just everyone wants to get their time in the sun and get their own clip. But it did seem like they, if they had a game plan. I wasn't quite attuned to what it was.
- [03:18]
B
Yeah, no, I, I, I agree with that. I mean, I'm not sure they can, they need Republican votes to defeat him. I'm not sure the Republican senators are going to be moved by some Democratic senators questioning. So that's maybe they're right not to worry about. But then they didn't really focus it was to take the Epstein, the Maxwell thing, which for me is so amazing. You know, he, they put out the statement on July 6, 2025. Justice and FBI. Nothing, nothing to see here. The stonewalling falls apart. Ten days later, July 17, as the wall Street Journal story on the birthday card is about to break. There's a meeting in the situation room situation room at the White House which the deputy attorney, it's political people, it's the comms guys and the regular people you'd meet with in the White House to figure out how do you handle this is a bad story for us. And the Deputy Attorney General of the United States who has law enforcement responsibilities, who's not supposed to be chatting, particularly with the White House comms guy on how to handle this for Trump is there and indeed seems for Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's account to be pretty central to the meeting. And in fact, the upshot of the meeting is that a week later he flies to Florida to meet with Maxwell. Two days and then a week later, Maxwell's transferred to the cushy prison. I don't know, I Feel like I have said I'm not an expert on this, I'm not a lawyer. I think I said maybe moderately clearly, I hope, and I didn't practice this or anything, you know, in 30 seconds, what happened? I don't know. Did you. I felt like none of them quite. I'm not better. They're smart people. They've done this a million times. I don't do this. I mean, why can't they just say that, you know, and put him on the spot? I don't know.
- [04:42]
A
Well, then it gets to the form of questioning. Right. Like, you know, yes or no questions are easy to dismiss of. Right. But if you ask open ended questions, like tell us about what happened in the Situation Room when you guys were going through those files, just like walk us through it and, and you know, just see what he says. Let him score him. Like, let it, just leave it a little bit open ended for him. And I don't mean this literally, and I know this is probably coming out poorly because we're talking about Jeffrey Epstein, but he could hang himself on that answer, right? It did come up. Epstein did come up. I don't want to suggest it didn't. But remarkably, the, the, the, the question that kind of tripped him up a little bit or at least caused the most damage, I think again came from a Republican senator. In this case, it was John Kennedy of Louisiana who asks him about the Epstein trafficking issue and whether there were other people who Epstein trafficked beyond young women or who he trafficked to beyond himself. Let's play that clip for those who
- [05:49]
C
missed it other than to himself. Who, if Anyone else, did Mr. Epstein traffic young women to?
- [06:03]
D
There's, there's, from what we learned, from what we know. So when we know, I mean, what's in the FBI files and what's in the DOJ files, we did not identify evidence. And by we, I mean career prosecutors. Not, not me, not my leadership, but career prosecutors in New York and career prosecutors in Florida who worked this case hard did identify other participants, some of whom, as has been discussed, were also victims themselves of Mr. Epstein. But we did not have evidence as of now of other men who were, that were trafficked that Epstein helped traffic. That is, does not mean it didn't happen. And I want to be clear about that. It just means that we have evidence that the FBI gathered and that the Department of Justice gathered and that's the body of, of work that, that we have to work with. Which is why I said earlier, if there's anybody out there, victim or Otherwise,
- [07:04]
A
all right, we can stop this information.
- [07:06]
D
I beg them.
- [07:08]
A
So I just, it's, it doesn't, it defies credulity. Right. Like, it doesn't really make sense. And also, I don't think that one's going to go over particularly well among Trump supporters who have trafficked in the Epstein saga for years. They're not going to just say, oh, yeah, I guess that's it. Case shot.
- [07:26]
B
Yeah. I mean, he's Attorney General of the United States if his job is not to tell us what evidence has been collected, it's to collect evidence if there's new reason to do so. Other people around, countries around the world are going after, you know, seem to be interested in prosecuting people whose activities have come to light anyway. But, so I, and, and I think the survivors sitting in the room would be happy to be privately with Todd Blanche, that he hasn't done that with them. To say, here's how I was trafficked. I mean, I, I find the answer kind of amazing, actually. I hadn't, I'd read about it, but I hadn't been watching at that point. You know, sort of this kind of bland assurance that, well, we don't really know if he trafficked anyone to these people. Really, what would, like, what was he doing with all that? I mean, that's just ludicrous.
- [08:06]
A
Right?
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B
On the face of it, I think.
- [08:08]
A
Well, no, it makes no sense. And the idea that, well, we haven't discovered it yet. It's like, I. You've been at it for over a year.
- [08:16]
B
They're not investigating anything, do you think?
- [08:18]
A
No, no, no, no, no. I mean, all the reporting is that they're not investigating so much as figuring out how to release what they are legally obligated to or the little, the least amount are legally obligated to. Again, though, I think sort of the meta element here is important. It was a Republican senator who caused that, and it was the same senator who caused the other semi viral clip. This is Kennedy again, who's probing him on just, you know, how close are you to Trump? I mean, this is the big critique. You worked for Donald Trump. You was lawyer. Democrats over here are going to tell you that you're just an arm of the president. Can you dissuade them of this? And then Todd Blynch absolutely steps in it. Let's watch that.
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C
Are you and President Trump friends?
- [09:07]
D
I'm his lawyer. Was his lawyer, and now I'm the Deputy Attorney General. So I met him as his criminal defense attorney. I'm not sure there's very many people who have ever had a criminal defense attorney who calls that person their friend. I now have a.
- [09:24]
C
Well, let me put it this way. Are you enemies?
- [09:27]
D
No, we're not enemies at all. No.
- [09:29]
C
Have you ever.
- [09:30]
A
Okay, that one was a fuck up.
- [09:34]
B
Yeah. That should be all over the place. The Democrats should cut it. They don't need to cut the. Blanche is not an idiot. So he quickly realizes what he said and it just goes off into some, you know, oh, you know, defense lawyers are really not really your friends with your clients and trying to get it back to pre2025. Right. But of course he does think of himself as Trump's lawyer and they, and that's very, and that is a core point which underlies, as you said, a lot of the particular, a lot of the particularities of the decisions he's made in terms of prosecutions and pardons and letting people, or he doesn't do the pardons, but defending the pardons and also a lot of the other stuff that's justice has signed off on all the, obviously the slush fund. Right. So Kennedy, in his weird kind of goofy way, as you say, caused much more trouble for, for Blanche than these Democratic lawyers asking their fine tuned legal, you know, challenges.
- [10:25]
A
Yeah, let's talk about math here. So Mitch McConnell's out, which means there's 52 senators, the late Senator Lindsey Graham's sister is in. So it stays at 52, which means that it would take three Republicans to vote against Blanche to torpedo his nomination. I guess also the committee is at 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats. So if they can't get a majority in the committee, he doesn't get out of the committee. But I do believe they can still bring him to the floor. But they would have to then hit a 65 threshold. I don't know the particularities of, of this. So anyways, there are ways to defeat him, but leaving this, I'm not sure that the math is there for Democrats. Right.
- [11:13]
B
I'm not sure. The only, I think I've always been doubtful that it was for me if it was about making clear his relationship to Trump, his relationship to the Epstein files and sort of wrapping that around their neck, so to speak, at both Blanche's and Trump's. Having said that, Cornyn says he's undecided and he's on the committee, so that would be a problem for them. He's the one Republican who seems up for grabs on the committee. Murkowski I've sort of thought is maybe a likely no vote, almost And Collins is a possible no vote and she's up there in Maine and they, I killed someone there. And she made a big deal of how she called personally Mark Wayne Mullen and the head secretary of DHS and got him to stop those, those auto, you know, stops. And then Trump seems to have contradicted Mullen assured Collins this. And then Trump decided, no, no, we have. Those are very important to ICE doing its job. What Trump tweeted at 7:00 clock this morning. So Collins is really at a bind. I don't know if she'll vote against Blanche, but I think that vote really can be hung around her neck politically this year. And the politics of this just for a second. I mean, there are Republican senators on the ballot in competitive states, incumbent senators who presumably are going to vote for Blanche and the Democrats job partly since they do kind of important for them, but for the country, if you agree with their analysis of Blanche's running of justice and Trump's running of the federal government, kind of important for the Democratic Senate to help check a lot of these things in Ohio and even in Florida and in Maine, obviously. And in what I'm now flanking on, there are two other states that are with Democratic, oh, Alaska with Sullivan and then one other Republican senators on the ballot in a very, in a competitive race and make, you know, that could be a pretty. That could be something in the race, I think.
- [13:04]
A
Bill, you're so Pollyannish, it's unbelievable. I feel like you always find a thread of.
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B
Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [13:16]
A
Well, I don't know about that one. I will just say the surprise. There was two surprises for me with respect to the questioning. One was Cornyn. I know he's unencumbered by, you know, the need to win office and all that stuff. And he's a free man and I fully expect him to vote for Blanche, don't get me wrong. But he did spend his time early, early on because he's a senior member of this committee really going after the weaponization fund. So I mentioned, I referenced that up top and Corny was just like, okay, you say that it's null and void and put it in writing. It's like, well, okay, just put it right now. They kept going back and forth. He's like. And he kept saying, could the, could the President sue again for a violation of this agreement that was cut between. It's all interrelated between him and his own doj it. Could he sue for this weaponization fund to be brought back into existence? And Planche was like, I suppose he could, but I don't think it's going to happen. So Cornet was really probing on that, and it's clear that the weaponization fund specifically was a deep bother to him. So that was one surprise for me. The other one was Tillis. Tillis is in somewhat similar circumstances to Corn. He's not going to be a member of the Senate after January. He doesn't have any reason to, like, you know, play footsie with maga. And he has been vocal about a lot of his anger with the administration. But he spent his time basically telling Blanche what a good job he was doing and then admonishing Democrats for being hypocrites. So he's, he seems to me like a firm yes vote. Those were the big surprises for me.
- [14:54]
B
Yeah. Tell us. His comment, I think was, you're doing a good job at this hearing.
- [14:57]
C
Right.
- [14:58]
B
I mean, I mean, unless he also probably thinks he's doing an okay job as Attorney general. And I, I'm, I think he's almost certainly a yes vote. It is wonderful. And these senators are supposed to be interested in whether the person will do a good job, has done a good job in office, as you say. He's been deputy Attorney General now acting. So it's not like you're playing. It's not a blank slate situation. Right. And, and then what he will do in office, and instead they all become like theater critics. Well, you're doing really a good job being kind of clever here, you know, and it could be a little more serious about what actually they, the Justice Department should be doing and is or isn't doing under the direction of Todd Blanch, but it's probably too much to ask for.
- [15:33]
A
They talked a little bit about the pardons, which I thought was interesting. And we'll get Lizo tomorrow as one of the Democratic witnesses, the ex pardon attorney. And they Talked, obviously about January 6th. Klobuchar pressed him on whether he would send armed officials to the polling positions. I was a little bit confused by that one, because maybe I'm wrong. You correct me if I'm like, it's not really his call. Right. Like Trump. That'd be Trump and Hegseth potentially. Right. I, I don't know. I guess the DOJ does have a role there, right? Or am I wrong?
- [16:06]
B
I'll tell you one thing about doj, so interesting. I mean, people underestimate how important it is. And I say this is someone who worked not just in the White House, but in the Education Department. So in a Way had the experience of being at another cabinet agency, a much inferior one obviously is a smaller and less important one.
- [16:19]
A
Don't say that.
- [16:20]
B
Or Defense important though. Education is, don't get me wrong, but DOJ is really important because they sign off on the legality of all kinds of things. Someone made a good point to me the other day, just a couple days ago, just chatting with Supreme Court and he said, you know, he's a lawyer. He said, actually people, the Supreme Court's important. You know what? Just as important, they Office of Legal Counsel, the Justice Department. If the Office of Legal Counsel says, no problem with these boat strikes, we've done the careful analysis. Here's a 32 page reports classified in. OK, read it. But we're giving it of course to DOJ, to DOD, to, to the military and to the JAGs, and they have to follow it. You can't stare at education or Defense or, or somewhere else and say, well, I have my own opinion about this, you can say it. But the Justice Department controls, so to speak. And so there. Justice is the. Who runs justice and how they run it does, does affect the whole government. So to get to your question, I think in that respect, justice could be quite important, even though as you say, the actual people who would be deployed presumably would be people or DoD people and so forth. So it is important, the, the justice. I mean, if you're thinking of the
- [17:21]
A
authoritarian picture writ large, yeah, of course it's important.
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B
Justice is really crucial.
- [17:26]
A
So, you know, of course it's important. And the way that it's been deputized by Trump is obviously problematic from institutional standpoint, democracy standpoint. I don't recall anyone asking him about the Comey prosecution, the infamous Seashells prosecution. But like, that's a great example. I mean, it's an intimidate, it's used as an intimidation force, a blunt one particularly. I know you have to go in
- [17:49]
B
the New York Times, right, Sam? I mean.
- [17:51]
A
Oh yeah, that happened literally last week. And his, I believe his signature was. Oh no, that was Clayton's signature that was on it. Which brings me to, okay, the other hearing that's happening here. So I don't know why they scheduled. I'm sure this was intentional. But Jay Clayton's nomination to be head of DNI is currently happening at a separate Senate hearing, separate confirmation hearing at the same exact time. And Clayton, as people probably know, Southern District of New York, uh, Attorney Bill Pulte is currently in the post. I think generally speaking, Bill, virtually everyone on the Hill, except for the Die Hards really want PY out of there because it's a mess and. But Clayton is like having a. Having a little bit of a rough go of it in front of his committee because they keep asking him a very difficult question, which is, who won the 2020 election? It's an impossible question. We just don't know the answer to it. But this moment in particular, really. And we'll get back to shiff, actually, in a little bit. I want to play the clean thing and go to shift. This moment with Jon Ossoff really stood out about how uncomfortable that Clayton hearing has gotten here.
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E
Asking for the support of senators to lead America's intelligence community. We have established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public, but you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Is that right?
- [19:17]
B
No, that's not right.
- [19:18]
E
Then answer the question. Who won the 2020 election?
- [19:21]
B
I have answered the question.
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E
Answer it. What is your answer?
- [19:24]
A
I've given you my answer.
- [19:26]
E
What is your answer? You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you asked to lead America's intelligence community. Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the President's delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?
- [20:00]
A
I think I gave you the answer. Oh, my God. Clayton must be sitting there being like this little shit. Just little shit, trying to put me in a corner. But, yeah, answer the fucking question. What would happen if he said Joe Biden won? But here we are. I guess Trump would pull the nomination.
- [20:19]
B
I don't know. I don't know. It is a good example we were talking about before, though, that, I mean, also picks one thing. He goes after him. He doesn't give up. It's not exactly, you know, it's not about exactly the details of what he's going to do at odni. Right. I mean, it's a broader.
- [20:36]
A
Although we don't know now because they've been.
- [20:38]
B
Well, but it is. And it is a predicate, obviously, for. For what Trump's going to do tomorrow night in his speech and what the. And the whole, you know, attempt to. To. To go after the next set of elections. But still, it is. Yeah, I thought that was. That was telling. It is pathetic. I mean, it's unbelievable. We're in the United states, America in 2026, and these people being nominated to the highest positions of Trust and importance in the United States government cannot say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. I mean, yeah,
- [21:06]
A
it's remarkable. And again, I come back to the idea, like, what would happen. I just don't. I'm very curious. I just want it to happen once where one says, yeah, Biden won, votes are count. It was pretty close, you know, but it happened. And now we're here, so let's move on. I just want to see it happen once, just to see Trump's reaction. All right, we're going to do a quick thing here. Let's go live to Adam Schiff just to get a taste of what's happening. And let's also bring in Will Salatin when he's ready, because I know Bill does have to leave soon. Yeah.
- [21:34]
C
Position under you, Mr. Blanche, the department's position under you, Mr. Blanche, was do not release the report. So that position, if you went into court asking them to release it, it would be released by now. So how is that not a patent conflict of interest?
- [21:49]
D
What you're saying happens to not be true? I did not do that. What you're talking about happened.
- [21:54]
C
So you support the release of.
- [21:56]
D
No, I don't. But I'm recused and had nothing to
- [21:58]
A
do with that case. Like, you can't accuse me of violating
- [22:01]
D
my ethical rules and then lie about what I did.
- [22:04]
C
So you had nothing to do with the decision to prohibit the release of the report? You had nothing to do with it?
- [22:10]
D
I wasn't in court.
- [22:11]
C
I wasn't asking whether you were in court. I'm asking you whether anyone sought your opinion or used your guidance in refusing to release volume two when you're saying
- [22:20]
D
you had nothing to do with that decision. Litigation was ongoing. I was a private citizen still representing the President, United States. It was before March. Since March, to the extent there's been anything.
- [22:32]
C
Mr. Blanchard, I asked you in your last confirmation hearing whether you.
- [22:36]
A
He's talking about volume two here. Is that the volume two? The Jack Smith report? Will myself.
- [22:41]
C
Your answer was no, I will not release the report. That was your testimony last before this committee. You subsequently were advised by ethics lawyers not to be involved in these matters. But it appears you were involved in these matters. Let me ask you about another matter.
- [22:55]
A
I wasn't involved. Well, it appears I was involved.
- [22:58]
C
Let me ask you about another one. You have your name on.
- [23:00]
A
The truth has to matter at some point.
- [23:02]
C
Yeah, it does matter. We just don't hear much of it from you. But let me ask you about another matter. You have your name on I don't think you can deny responsibility here. And that is the IRS settlement agreement. So you put your name on this, that absolves the president of tax liabilities. In the past, the president was convicted in the case you represented him in of falsifying business records in part for tax purposes. Does this.