“We can stop capitulating today by doing our job and rejecting a completely unqualified man to be the top law enforcement official in this country.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today voted against advancing Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General (AG) of the United States. At a Judiciary Committee meeting ahead of the vote Senator Welch called out Acting AG Blanche—and the entire U.S. Senate—for capitulating to President Trump, who has consistently and corruptly abused his authority and the power of the Executive.
“This is a story about how a young and talented and idealistic man—committed to public service, a prosecutor’s prosecutor—became a new person in service of a corrupt president. It’s a story of ambition, and loyalty, and political calculation eroding resistance and idealism. Mr. Blanche has used his considerable talents to accommodate the corrupt goals of a corrupt president…But Blanche is also a story about how a once great institution is relinquishing its own power and capitulating to a corrupt president. Is there no line that the U.S. Senate will not allow this president to cross?” said Senator Welch.
Welch concluded: “The president is abusing his authority. But we are failing, as the U.S. Senate, to use our authority. When we fail to use our authority, we fail to meet our responsibility to the people of this country. We can stop capitulating today by doing our job and rejecting a completely unqualified man to be the top law enforcement official in this country. I will vote no.”
Read the Senator’s full remarks as delivered here and watch more below:
In Acting AG Todd Blanche’s nomination hearing, Senator Welch grilled Mr. Blanche on his relationship with President Trump and his willingness to put his personal loyalty to the president ahead of the American people. Senator Welch questioned Mr. Blanche on his previous professional relationship with President Trump and clear conflicts of interest, the creation of Trump and Blanche’s so-called anti-weaponization fund, Trump’s reckless presidential pardons, and Blanche’s firing of career pardon attorneys, and the Trump Administration’s attempts to subpoena members of the press.
In May, Senator Welch called on Acting AG Blanche to resign. He also led all Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats in demanding that the DOJ Inspector General (IG) launch an immediate, thorough, and quick investigation into President Trump’s creation of the nearly $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” emphasizing how President Trump’s slush fund, created from a settlement agreement in Trump v. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), represents waste, fraud, and abuse of an unprecedented magnitude and must be subjected to independent scrutiny.
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