WASHINGTON--President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche, faced tense bipartisan questioning at a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday about the rollout of the Epstein files and a settlement that gave the president sweeping tax immunity.
Blanche, the president's former personal lawyer, was pressed by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas about the Justice Department's decision to settle Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service by creating a since-abandoned $1.8 billion fund to compensate Trump allies for alleged prior government mistreatment, along with an associated order shielding Trump and his family businesses from facing tax audits over prior conduct.
Blanche, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, deemed the planned fund "dead," but acknowledged the underlying settlement had not been formally rescinded. He said Trump's lawyers would have to go to court to enforce the settlement, something Blanche said they had no plans to do.
He defended the tax portion of the deal as standard practice in IRS settlements, though tax experts have described the immunity for Trump as highly unusual.
Cornyn told reporters during a hearing break that Blanche's answers did not assuage his concerns about the fund and did not yet get him to a yes vote. He said he would wait to make a decision until he has to make a vote.
"The argument was that the weaponization fund was dead," he said. "What he confirmed is that it’s not." He added: "I continue to have some concerns."
Blanche, who would need nearly unanimous Republican support in a closely divided Senate, won praise from most Republicans on the panel, including Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has sharply criticized the "anti-weaponization" fund.
Blanche sought to create some distance with Trump, saying federal judges should not be impeached for ruling against Trump administration policies and acknowledging that people who assaulted police during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol should have been prosecuted. Trump pardoned nearly all convicted of taking part in the riot.
"President Trump trusts me to give him counsel," Blanche told Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. "Counsel does not mean I'm a yes man."
But Blanche, who has been serving as acting attorney general, also defended Trump's right to issue the pardons. "I am not celebrating that," he said. "It is a fact."
Blanche in his opening statement touted his record reducing violent crime and combating fraud in public benefits programmes. He also defended efforts to correct what he described as past wrongdoing by the Biden administration, when the Justice Department brought two criminal prosecutions of Trump.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Republican Chuck Grassley in his opening statement praised Blanche for reducing violent crime while criticizing Democrats for trying to derail Blanche's nomination. "They won't talk about these successes," Grassley said.
