Blanche Strikes Confirmation Deal With Holdout GOP Senators to Become AG

MS NOW anchor Vaughn Hillyard reported on the latest developments in the ongoing confirmation saga of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who appeared on Monday to strike a deal with the two GOP senators standing in the way of his confirmation as Trump attorney general.

“Blanche posted a pair of memos to social media late Sunday night, and in one, he wrote that the $1.8 billion fund that could have provided massive payouts to Trump allies, including even January 6th insurrectionists, is rescinded and shall have no force or effect,” Hillyard reported on the key sticking point causing Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) to hold their support for Blanche.

“A second, unsigned memo appeared to settle another holdup, clarifying the scope of tax audit protections retroactively, but it will still cover the president, his two oldest sons, and the Trump Organization. In a statement, Blanche said, quote, ‘My team and I have met with committee members and senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions,’” Hillyard continued, adding:

But there are already major questions over this new apparent arrangement, like whether the kill order is permanent and binding, or whether the fund can be revived or recreated in the future, or whether that second memo is even legally binding without a signature. And then there’s the pressure coming from President Trump himself, who has complicated Blanche’s entire confirmation process by repeatedly expressing his desire to keep the fund alive, as recently as Sunday, just hours before Blanche released the memos.

“This would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffer. A lot of people like it. If they don’t approve that, I put it back on the table.”

Hillyard then turned to MS NOW congressional reporter Mychael Schnell and asked, “I just want to get to the part of how Cornyn and Tillis got to this point of believing that these memos were acceptable for them to move forward with Blanche’s confirmation.”

“I mean, this was a journey, right? This markup, this vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, was initially scheduled to take place on Thursday,” Schnell replied.

He added:

That plan was then scrapped when Tillis and Cornyn said, “We are not going to vote for it unless Todd Blanche comes to us with this offer.” Remember, John Cornyn had that meeting scheduled with Todd Blanche that morning, and he then canceled it because he said, “Todd Blanche hasn’t given me what I wanted.” For a while they’ve been saying they wanted to reopen that agreement to deem that fund dead and to narrow the scope of the IRS audit immunity.

At the end of the day, they got a piece of paper signed by Todd Blanche that says it’s dead. And then they got another document, not signed by Todd Blanche, that clarifies key parts of that IRS immunity deal. It’s not exactly what they had asked for, but nonetheless, they are settling on the key questions. Going to be, why? I can’t get inside their heads. I’m going to be looking for them in the Capitol when they return to session — the Senate returns to session later today — but it seems to me like a tried-and-true Senate compromise, where both sides come to the table, come to sort of an agreement that they can both go home and say that they won in some way.

Cornyn and Tillis can say, “I have a piece of paper signed by Todd Blanche that says the word ‘dead’ and ‘anti-weaponization fund,'” while Trump allies can say, “Well, the president and his sons and companies are still shielded from those audits.” So we’re going to have to see the true thought process from Cornyn and Tillis when we catch up with them later today. But there’s certainly a lot of questions left, because yes, the paper says dead, but for how long? Could they resurrect it in a different way? And then that immunity — I mean, that’s not even a signed document.

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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