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Sen. Whitehouse 'Unreasonable to trust Todd Blanche' · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Screw up to the botched release that even Pam Bondi
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: pointed at Blanche as responsible for, and it gives the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: blessing to his continuing role in the cover up of
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Epstein files. So there's Epstein for you. And let me
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: add ask the letter from the Epstein victims two Senators
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Tillis and Cornyn to be put into the record. So
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: next we get to this crooked slush fund Trump Family
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: tax amnesty scam.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Let's take a look at that. We've got these two.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: New pieces of paper, one signed only by Todd Blanche,
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  Speaker 1: one not signed by anybody, neither of which has any
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  Speaker 1: legal effect whatsoever.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: They are decorative problems do they leave behind?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Well, one is can you trust Todd Blanche going forward?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I will tell you I do not. I think it
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: would be unreasonable to trust him going forward. There is
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: enough weasel room in these documents to drive a truck through.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: And what might that truck look like. Well, you could
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: get rid of the.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Anti Weaponization Fund for one point seven seven six billion
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and in a month put out the Trump Justice Fund
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for one point nine billion. Nothing in this document prevents
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: anything like that from happening. You could open a drive
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: up window at the Department of Justice for cup beaters
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: from January sixth to come through and get friendly Federal
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Tort Claims Act settlements from the Department of Justice. They're
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: already handing out settlements to Trump's allies. What's to prevent
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the drive up window? Come on in, here we are.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: We got the friendly form for you to file, and
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: here's a check. Nothing prevents the cop beaters from being
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: funded by the Trump Department of Justice. But let's assume
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that we really have made a big improvement here.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Let's assume that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: The burglar has been forced to give back some of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the jewelry he stole. Being forced to give back some
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: ill gotten gains doesn't mean you're not still a burglar.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: There's a question of the man's character that he was
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: willing to get into these schemes in the first place,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: into what George Will called the sludge of self dealing
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of this administration. Even if there isn't slush fund two
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: point zero, and even if there isn't the drive up
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: window for cop beaters, there's a real problem with an
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  Speaker 1: individual who would agree to that in the first place.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: To me, that should be disqualifying. And the last bit
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  Speaker 1: I'm that is how he got there. Let's not forget
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that there is an ongoing proceeding in Florida in federal
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: court with an open question whether Todd Blanche committed a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: fraud upon the court. We don't hear that term fraud
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: upon the court very often.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: It's probably the worst thing you.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Can accuse someone of in a court proceeding.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: It means you're an officer of the court.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: It means you abused the process of the court, and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you did so in order to accomplish an unjust and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: wrongful result. It's actually worse than contemptive court. It is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: so bad that in the history of the Department of Justice,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: no senior official has ever been even accused of a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: fraud upon the court. We're advancing this guy before that
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: question is settled in Florida, while there's still a bar issue,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a disciplinary issue with the New York Bar related to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: that misconduct.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Fraud on the court is a big deal, and it's
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: not going away. Then.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Last of all, you've just got the general dishonesty and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: incompetence of the operation that Todd Blanche is running.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: And I'm not going to go through the list.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: It would take the whole day, But let me go
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: through a couple of summaries of it. The Economist magazine,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: not exactly a left wing publication, had its lead article,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: its cover article.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: On the US Department of Justice title.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Degradation in process, degradation in process. Ask unanimous consent to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: add that article to my remarks. Then here's a story
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: from Pro PUBLICA federal judges chastised Trump's Justice Department for unlawful, unethical,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and unseemly conduct. I'll just read the first sentence. Across
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the country, federal judges are calling out Department of Justice lawyers,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: questioning in unprecedented ways whether they can be trusted to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: tell the truth or uphold centuries old legal norms. Ask
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: unanimous consent that that article be added to the record.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And then there's a group called Just Security, which reads
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: through decisions from federal judges around the country and gathers
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the incidences in which the federal judge has challenged the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: integrity or the competence of the Department of Justice. It's
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: about this thick I'll just ask to have its introduction
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: put into the record. If my colleagues want to go
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and look and see what the avalanche of misconduct that
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Blanches leadership has precipitated. Looks like you know where to
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: find the report. Here's the introduction. It talks about the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: presumption of regularity, a judicially created doctrine with a long
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and contested history. The doctrine affords the executive branch a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: distinct advantage by instructing to presume that executive officials have
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: properly discharged their official duties. And what the report characterized
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: is the destruction of that presumption of regularity in this
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Department of Justice. So I asked unanimous consent that that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: be added as well.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And then since I've mentioned.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: It, I'll also ask George Will's article where I described
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: his description of the settlement between the President and the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: executive branch he heads, exemplifying the administration's sledge of self dealing,
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  Speaker 1: that also be added to the record. The last question
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that I'm left with here is what's left of this committee?
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: What's left of this committee when we don't demand straight
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: answers from witnesses.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: How many times has.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: This Department of Justice been asked what became of the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars that the FBI reported that it handed
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to mister Homan in a bribery sting. That's administrative stuff
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: that gets reported. There's an account, you've got to check
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the money out. If you get the money back, you've
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: got to check the money back. There's an administrative trail.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: We can't get any information about that. Our Republican colleagues
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Cash Patel virtually certainly lied to this committee sitting in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: front of us. Is there any interest in that at
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a time when Republicans in Congress seem agitated about Biden
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: officials lying to Congress, we got lies right here, folks.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know where this committee goes after it stops
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: being taken seriously, because all you have to be is
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: on the right partisan side to get this committee to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: roll over and play dead.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Chairman, Sir,