Five Reasons Why Todd Blanche Should NOT Be Confirmed As Attorney General

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich gives us 5 reasons Todd Blanche Should not be confirmed at Attorney General: 

1. Illegally suppressed the Epstein files

Blanche has conceded that the Department of Justice violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act by making improper redactions in the public release of Jeffrey Epstein’s records but continues to drag his feet. Under Blanche, the department is currently battling lawsuits from journalists and demands from the state of New Mexico to unseal the unredacted documents. 

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the department to either unredact and release specific files — including emails, potential co-conspirators, and interview notes summarizing allegations against President Trump — or justify why they must remain withheld. But under Blanche’s direction, the department has repeatedly missed or delayed fulfilling orders to unredact the records completely, leading plaintiffs and transparency advocates to accuse Blanche of ongoing noncompliance.

Blanche also personally interviewed Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison, before Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security facility. Minimum-security prisons are generally reserved for inmates with far shorter sentences than Maxwell’s 20 years. Did Blanche make a bargain with her? We don’t know. 

2. Prosecuted Trump’s “enemies”

Blanche has assured White House officials that he will move faster and more efficiently against Trump’s targets, and at executing other White House priorities, than did his predecessor, Pam Bondi. Bondi was fired presumably because she didn’t deliver what Trump wanted quickly enough. 

At Trump’s insistence, Blanche is moving ahead with investigations into several targets whom Trump regards as enemies — including John O. Brennan, the former CIA director who helped investigate Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Blanche is overseeing the Brennan inquiry, examining whether he lied to Congress in testimony in 2023, and relating to what Trump’s allies have cast as Brennan’s involvement in a “grand conspiracy” by Obama and Biden administration officials to keep Trump out of office each time he ran.

Blanche has also given the green light to inquiries into Cassidy Hutchinson, a young former White House aide who outraged Trump four years ago after she implicated him in the violence that erupted at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

Under Blanche, prosecutors have also revived a botched attempt to bring charges against James B. Comey, the former FBI director, after a federal judge threw out charges last year that Comey had lied to Congress. 

Blanche’s new indictment of Comey is for posting on social media an image of seashells he took while walking on a North Carolina beach. Blanche’s prosecutors are casting it as threatening because the image spelled “86 47” (the number “86” is slang for “getting rid of” someone or something, while “47” refers to Trump). Comey says that he quickly deleted the post as soon as he heard that the numbers were associated with violence.

There appears to be nothing Blanche won’t do that Trump wants done. Blanche is prosecuting the Democratic fundraising organization ActBlue. He’s prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights nonprofit in Alabama. In terms of turning the Department of Justice into the Department of Trump’s Grievances, Bondi was bad, but Blanche is far worse. 

3. Sought to erase January 6, 2021

Blanche is also doing Trump’s bidding in seeking to erase from the public record the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Blanche delivered Trump’s pardons to those who were found guilty and sentenced to prison. 

Under Blanche’s direction, the Department of Justice has even removed from its website news releases about the criminal cases related to what occurred on that fateful day, calling the information about the prosecutions “partisan propaganda.”

Blanche also signed off on a $1.8 billion fund that could have been funneled to those who stormed Congress as part of the so-called “settlement” agreement between Trump and, well, Trump, after Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service. After lawmakers from both parties criticized the deal, Blanche said, during a June 2 hearing before the House, “We are not moving forward with the fund, period.” But his flat refusal to put his reversal in writing is an indication that he could devise an alternative.

Meanwhile, Blanche has said there’s a “ton of evidence” the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump, though he couldn’t provide a “definitive answer” and has pointed to ongoing investigations in Georgia and Florida as possibly answering the question.

 

4. Tried to immunize Trump and his family 

Blanche personally signed — and was the only name on — the “settlement” document that would immunize Trump and his family from all future prosecutions. The breadth of this agreement is staggering. It prohibits the U.S. government from looking into any of the corrupt sh*t Trump and his family have gotten into. 

And there’s a lot of corrupt sh*t. Trump is easily the most corrupt president in American history. Since being in office for a second time, he’s so far increased his wealth by an estimated $4 billion, and his sons’ and daughters’ wealth by billions more. 

If the immunity part of the “settlement” remains in force, we may never know the true extent of Trump’s corrupt transactions, because the agreement — devised and signed by Blanche — may result in the largest cover-up of presidential wrongdoing and illegality in American history.

5. Overseen the largest exodus of talent in the department’s history

Blanche’s tenure has seen the departure of a record number of Department of Justice attorneys, including the termination of personnel who previously worked on January 6 cases or on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations. 

The resignations and departures amount to over a quarter of what had been the department’s entire legal staff. For example, roughly 70 percent — 250 — of the Civil Rights Division’s attorneys have departed. Two-thirds (69 out of 110) of the lawyers tasked with defending executive actions have either resigned or announced their exit.Staffing of the Voting Section unit has fallen from 30 attorneys to just three. High-level resignations have also occurred in the Southern District of New York and the Public Integrity Section.

For all these reasons, Blanche should not be confirmed as attorney general of the United States.

 

If you’re with me on this, please contact your senator’s office and tell them to vote NO on confirming Blanche. Your senators need to hear from you, now. Please do it today. 

The Senate switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Elected officials prioritize their own voters, so please share your name and your city/town so the staff knows you live in their state.

Gaetz Is Out - Trump's Second Choice Is Pam Bondi

It became obvious that Matt Gaetz was going to have a lot of trouble being confirmed (if he could be confirmed at all), so Donald Trump had Gaetz withdraw his name from consideration. By having Gaetz do it instead of Trump, it looks a little less like a loss by Trump (although that's exactly what it was).

It didn't take Trump long to announce another nominee for Attorney General. He chose attorney Pam Bondi of Florida. 

Trump's base will love the pick, because she is a Trump loyalist and a card-carrying member of the MAGA cult. I doubt many others will be pleased though.

Bondi has a couple of things that make her a better pick than Gaetz. She has no history of sexual abuse. She also has experience both as a prosecutor and an administrator - having served 18 years as a prosecutor and served two terms as Florida's Attorney General.

She is a right-wing culture warrior. She opposes abortion and LGBTQ+ rights (including the right to marry). And she twice tried to have the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) overturned.  She is also an election-denier, and defended Trump in his impeachment trial.

Will she fulfill Trump's dream of retribution against his political opponents? We don't know yet. But it's a bad sign that she accused President Biden of criminal behavior while defending Trump.

She's not a good choice, but nobody expected Trump to make a good choice. She will be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

DOJ Report On Uvalde Shooting - AG Garland's Remarks

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report on the police failures in the tragedy at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. You can go here to read the entire 260 page report if you desire. Below is the transcript of Attorney General Garland's speech in Uvalde upon releasing the report: 

Last night, I met with some of the survivors and the loved ones of the victims of the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. I came here to tell them that the United States Department of Justice has finished its Critical Incident Review.

In undertaking this review at the request of the then-mayor, the Justice Department committed to using our expertise and independence to assess the law enforcement response to the shooting, and to provide guidance moving forward.

As I told families and survivors last night, the Department’s review concluded that a series of major failures — failures in leadership, in tactics, in communication, and in training and preparedness — were made by law enforcement leaders and other officials responding to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary.

As a result, 33 students and three of their teachers — many of whom had been shot — were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside.

I also told the families and survivors how deeply sorry I am for the losses they suffered that day. And for the losses they have endured every day since.

I told them that the priority for the Justice Department in preparing this report has been to honor the memories of those who were taken from them.

And I told the families gathered last night what I hope is clear among the hundreds of pages and thousands of details in this report: their loved ones deserved better.

The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022 — and in the hours and days after — was a failure that should not have happened.

We hope to honor the victims and the survivors by working together to try to prevent anything like it from happening again, here or anywhere.

I am now going to turn to the key observations and recommendations of the report.

On May 24, 2022, at 11:33 a.m., an active shooter, wearing body armor and equipped with a high-powered AR-15 rifle, entered Robb Elementary School and began shooting into classrooms 111 and 112, which shared a connecting door. 

Within minutes, 11 law enforcement officers, from the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and Uvalde Police Department, arrived inside the school. Hearing continued gunfire, five officers immediately advanced toward classrooms 111 and 112. Within seconds, shots were fired from inside the classrooms, shrapnel hit two officers, and all responders retreated to cover.

A single officer then made additional attempts to approach the classrooms, but after 11:40 a.m., no more attempts to enter the rooms were made until 12:48 p.m., more than an hour later.  

As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies — injured and scared students and teachers remained trapped with the subject in the classrooms, waiting to be rescued. Survivors later shared that they heard officers gathered outside the classroom while they waited.

The victims trapped in classrooms 111 and 112 were waiting to be rescued at 11:44 a.m. — approximately 10 minutes after officers first arrived — when the subject fired another shot inside the classrooms.

They were still waiting at 11:56 a.m., when an officer on the scene told law enforcement leaders that his wife, a teacher, was inside classrooms 111 and 112, and had been shot. 

They were still waiting as broadcasts went out on officer radios that a student trapped inside classroom [112] had called 911 at 12:10 p.m., to say the student was in a room full of victims. That student stayed on the phone with 911 for 16 minutes.

The victims were still waiting to be rescued when the subject fired four more shots inside the classrooms at 12:21 p.m., 49 minutes after officers first arrived on scene. 

And they were still waiting for another 27 minutes after that until officers finally entered the classrooms and killed the subject.

As the victims were trapped and waiting for help, many of their families were waiting outside the school, growing increasingly concerned about why law enforcement had not taken action to rescue their loved ones.

Law enforcement officers from different agencies, who had self-deployed to the scene in overwhelming numbers, were themselves waiting for leadership decisions about how to proceed.

Many officers reported that they did not know: who, if anyone, was in charge; what they should do; or the status of the incident.  

Some officers were confused about why there was no attempt to confront the active shooter and rescue the children.  

Some officers believed the subject had already been killed, or that law enforcement was in the room with the shooter.

Seventy-five minutes after the first officers arrived on scene, officers finally entered room 111. The subject engaged the entry team with gunfire, and the officers responded with fire.

Seventy-seven minutes after the first officers arrived on scene, and after 45 rounds had been fired by the active shooter, the shooter was killed.

The massacre at Robb Elementary school shattered families throughout this community and devastated our country. Nineteen children and two of their teachers. An untold number of students, teachers, and law enforcement officers were injured.

The law enforcement response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary was a failure.

As the threat posed to our country by mass shootings has grown and evolved over the past several decades, law enforcement’s response tactics have also changed.

The massacre at Columbine High School 25 years ago, and the 47 minutes it took for law enforcement to enter that high school, marked a major shift in how law enforcement leaders think about responding to mass shootings.

It is now widely understood by law enforcement agencies across the country that, in active shooter incidents, time is not on the side of law enforcement. Every second counts. And the priority of law enforcement must be to immediately enter the room and stop the shooter with whatever weapons and tools officers have with them.

That is the approach responding officers first employed when they arrived at Robb Elementary School.

But within minutes of arriving inside the school, officials on scene transitioned from treating the scene as an active shooter situation to treating the shooter as a barricaded subject.

This was the most significant failure.

That failure meant that law enforcement officials prioritized a protracted evacuation of students and teachers in other classrooms, instead of immediately rescuing the victims trapped with the active shooter.

It meant that officials spent time attempting to negotiate with the subject, instead of trying to enter the rooms and confront him. 

It meant that officials asked for and waited for additional responders and equipment, instead of following generally accepted active shooter practice and moving toward the shooter with the resources they had.

It meant waiting for a set of keys to open the classroom door, which the report concludes was likely unlocked anyway.

And, it meant that the victims remained trapped with the shooter for more than an hour after the first officers arrived on scene.

There were also failures in leadership, command, and coordination. 

None of the law enforcement leaders at the scene established an incident command structure to provide timely direction, control, and coordination of the enormous number of responders who arrived on scene. This lack of a command structure, exacerbated by communications difficulties, contributed to confusion among responders about who was in charge and how they could help.

These failures may also have been influenced by policy and training deficiencies at responding law enforcement agencies. Some lacked any active shooter training at all; some had inappropriate training; some lacked critical incident response training; and the vast majority had never trained together with different agencies.

As Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will discuss in further detail, the chaos and confusion that defined the law enforcement response while the shooter remained a threat also defined the aftermath.

For example, surviving victims, some with bullet wounds and other injuries, were put on buses without being brought to the attention of medics. Some families were told that their family members had survived when they had not.  

And victims, families, and community members struggled to receive timely and accurate information about what had occurred at Robb Elementary.

The Justice Department’s objective in preparing this report was threefold: first, to honor the victims, the survivors, and their loved ones.

Second, to provide a clear and independent accounting of the law enforcement response to the horrific attack that devastated this community.

And third, to provide law enforcement agencies and communities across the country with analysis and recommendations about how what happened in Uvalde should inform efforts to prepare for and respond to mass shootings.  

Policing is a noble profession. It is also a hard one. It requires training and constant education about evolving threats.

The report includes widely accepted recommendations that have been adopted by law enforcement agencies across the country about how to prepare for, and respond to, active shooter situations.

Before an active shooter incident occurs, law enforcement agencies have a responsibility to ensure that their leaders and all their officers are trained to focus on rapid response — trained that the first officers on scene must focus on eliminating the threat and protecting the victims most in danger.

Law enforcement leaders responding to an active shooter must be prepared to take charge, to establish a unified command, and to facilitate communications, operational coordination, and allocation and delivery of resources. They must continually assess and adjust as the incident evolves.

And in the aftermath of a mass shooting, law enforcement and government agencies must provide the public with a sense of trust and confidence by communicating openly, clearly, and compassionately during a time in which many are learning the most devastating news that anyone can receive.

The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, deserved better.

First and foremost, the 19 children and their two teachers who were stolen from their loved ones should be here today.

They should never have been targeted by a mass shooter.

We must never forget the shooter’s heinous acts that day.  

And the victims and survivors should never have been trapped with that shooter for more than an hour as they waited for their rescue.

The families of the victims and survivors deserved more than incomplete, inaccurate, and conflicting communications about the status of their loved ones.

This community deserved more than misinformation from officials during and after the attack.

Responding officers here in Uvalde — who also lost loved ones and who still bear the emotional scars of that day — deserved the kind of leadership and training that would have prepared them to do the work that was required.

Our children deserve better than to grow up in a country where an 18-year-old has easy access to a weapon that belongs on battlefield, not in a classroom.

And communities across the country, and the law enforcement officers who protect them, deserve better than to be forced to respond to one horrific mass shooting after another.  

But that is the terrible reality that we face.

And so, it is the reality that every law enforcement agency in every community across the country must be prepared for.

No community and no law enforcement agency should have to face that threat alone.

That is why we came to Uvalde. And that why we are releasing this report.

The Justice Department remains committed to working in partnership with communities across the country, and with the law enforcement agencies working to protect those communities every day. In particular, we stand ready to help communities and agencies prepare to respond to a terrible incident like the one that occurred here.

We have concluded the Department’s review. But we know that the work of healing here in Uvalde is only beginning.

We are humbled and grateful to stand with this community as you remember and honor your loved ones.

I'm Not A Doctor - But I Play One In Texas (SATIRE)

 

In the following funny (and frightening) satire by Alexandra Petri (The Washington Post), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tries to explain why he is overruling a doctor and a judge to prevent an needed abortion. 

“Judge Guerra Gamble is not medically qualified to make this determination and it should not be relied upon. A TRO is no substitute for medical judgment.”

— Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, writing to doctors who have received a court order allowing an abortion to end a nonviable pregnancy

There is no substitute for medical judgment, except the judgment of me, Ken Paxton.

Am I a doctor? No. I’m something better than a doctor: a Ken. My accessories include: no medical expertise and a boundless reservoir of cruelty. And one time, I saw a horse. I have also been told that my handwriting is bad and that I am not patient. This all screams “doctor” to me.

If we were on a plane or in a theater and someone yelled, “There is an emergency! Is there a doctor in the house?” I would absolutely raise my hand. “I am a man in a position of political authority in Texas happy to make life hell for all pregnant people. In the state of Texas, that’s better than a doctor!”

Indeed, the process for obtaining an abortion in Texas is simple. All you have to do is get a recommendation from your doctor that one is medically necessary, hire a legal team, get your case in front of a judge and obtain a court order! And then a man named Ken gets to say, “No! Let’s take this to the Supreme Court. Also, if you proceed, I will threaten your doctors!” And then the Texas Supreme Court gets to affirm Ken’s preference and halt your order. Simple. Routine. Elegant.

“This seems like a horrible, ghoulish way to behave when a person needs to access emergency medical care,” you might say. Sure! But we are not talking about a person in this case. We are talking about a woman. Totally different, in my medical opinion.

Am I a doctor? Look, I’ve always felt that nothing should limit what you can be or do, except the objections of a man named Ken in the state of Texas. Well, I’m a man named Ken in the state of Texas, and I think I am probably a doctor. And the state Supreme Court agrees.

I mean, of course, in all ways that count (chiefly, I get to make medical decisions for you), I am a doctor. Actually, maybe it would even be better if I weren’t! That would keep me from being unduly hidebound and unimaginative when faced with questions like: Which pregnancies are viable? Which are life-threatening? For too long, we’ve been constrained by what was medically possible. No more. I always try to bring an open mind and lots of questions. Should blood really be inside the body rather than outside? Maybe, instead of an epidural, we should try prayer? If a body has a uterus, then is there any room in it for legal rights? Questions of that kind!

What I don’t know about women’s health could fill a book! A book that I would refuse to read, on principle.

I am a small-government conservative. I believe that the government should be so small that it can fit into your uterus and make all medical decisions for you. Don’t try to expel it! That’s not allowed. Not in Texas! I am not a doctor, but, as a doctor, I will tell you: It is not medically safe.

I can’t believe that these judges are trying to interfere in a medical decision, as we have forced them to do under Texas state law. The effrontery! The gall! A substance I believe that I know a lot about, from my years practicing medicine! It’s what the brain is made of!

TO BE CLEAR, I AM TECHNICALLY NOT A DOCTOR, but I do get mad when people call Jill Biden one. I am only not a doctor in the sense that I haven’t been to medical school, was never a resident and think that there is a strong chance babies are carried by storks. Teach the controversy! I also have not read an anatomy book. (I hear they contain inappropriate pictures! More information requested from those in the know!) But in every other sense, I am a doctor: I am a male Republican Texan in a position of authority.

Want an abortion? In Texas, we believe in bodily autonomy and control over your medical choices. For me, Ken. Not for you, yourself. You can’t be trusted with it! But don’t worry. In Texas, there is no substitute for medical judgment. Oh, sorry! Typo. In Texas, there is no (substitute for medical judgment). The “No!” is from me, Ken Paxton.