Bondi Complicates Blanche’s Confirmation by Throwing Him Under the Epstein Bus

In spite of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s considerable baggage, Donald Trump would very much like to install his former personal lawyer permanently in the lead role at the Department of Justice (DOJ) since he can be assured of his unquestioned loyalty.

His confirmation will already be a bit of a litmus test to determine whether the president’s iron grip on Congress is weakening. Objectively, a sycophant like Blanche should not be the nation’s top lawyer, and plenty of Republican senators know this.

There is little doubt that he would put Trump’s needs above those of the American people. For example, Blanche was involved in the creation of the $1.8 billion slush fund with which the president wanted to reward people who broke the law on his behalf, as well as the immunity agreement that protects the Trumps and their businesses from IRS audits.

The acting attorney general also touted the pardons of MAGA supporters who stormed Congress to overturn the 2020 election results.

That alone should cost him the vote of retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Thursday, he stated unequivocally that no nominee who is siding with the insurrectionists rather than law enforcement will get his support.

“They better not have said for one minute that the people that beat up police officers — like these right down here — were righteous people,” he said while pointing at a couple of Capitol Police officers.

Tillis added that anyone who comes “even close to saying that” would not get his vote.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), another member of the committee, also expressed reservations, stating that he wants to ensure that Blanche understands that he would not serve as the president’s private lawyer.

Another issue that might complicate the confirmation is Blanche’s prominent role in DOJ’s (mis)handling of the Epstein files, which former Attorney General Pam Bondi highlighted in a closed-door interview with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

On Thursday, the panel released a transcript of that interview, which was conducted last month. Responding to lawmakers’ questions, Bondi repeatedly stated that Blanche was in charge of the messy release of the documents.

After the Trump administration was forced by a veto-proof majority of Congress to make them public, DOJ failed to comply with the law by delaying the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of documents and incorrectly redacting others.

“He was leading the Epstein matter and the release of everything from the beginning,” Bondi said of the man who was her deputy at the time.

She added that Blanche also was the one who determined which documents were considered privileged and that he supervised the training DOJ lawyers underwent to determine which redactions to make.

Both Democrats and some Republicans had accused the department of violating the disclosure law by unnecessarily redacting some documents and withholding others.

In addition, a whistleblower told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) that the FBI instructed its staff to flag the many Epstein files in which Trump was named.

Finally, Blanche also raised eyebrows when he met Epstein’s confidante Ghislaine Maxwell in prison right before she was moved to a minimum-security facility in violation of Bureau of Prisons rules.

It remains to be seen whether all of this will be enough to sink the nomination of someone who will likely kowtow to Trump even more than Bondi did.

What will complicate things a bit for the president is that he keeps alienating the very senators he needs to get Blanche confirmed, such as Tillis and Cornyn, whose political career he effectively ended by endorsing his primary opponent last month.

At the very least, it will make for interesting hearings when lawmakers get to grill the acting attorney general over his views on January 6, the slush fund, and Epstein.