Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general cleared a major hurdle this week after two Republican senators who had raised concerns agreed to back him. Blanche gave written assurances that a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" designed to pay Trump allies would not be resurrected, and that a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service only gave the president retroactive immunity from audits rather than perpetual protection. The Senate Judiciary Committee votes on Blanche's nomination Tuesday, with the full Senate expected to vote later in the week. Blanche, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney and acting attorney general since April, has been central in many of the administration's most controversial episodes, including prosecutions of Trump opponents and the botched rollout of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
If confirmed, Blanche would entrench a culture of corruption at the Justice Department, warns legal expert Norm Eisen. "There have been a series of offenses against the rule of law, miscarriages of justice," he tells Democracy Now!
Eisen is co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund. He previously served as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform in the Obama administration. The Justice Department recently dropped charges against his client, former Olympic athlete Davey Hearn, who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
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