Cornyn vs. Booker on advancing Blanche for AG

Senate Republicans advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general on Tuesday, setting him up for a full Senate vote in the days to come. Two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had held up the nomination, negotiating with Blanche behind the scenes before agreeing to vote for him.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, one of the holdouts, agreed to clear Blanche after the acting attorney general published a written order on Sunday rescinding the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay people who say they were victims of government "weaponization.”

“I expect the department to live up to this in future litigation, and I will vote to advance him out of the committee today,” Cornyn said. “But my vote to advance Mr. Blanche's nomination goes beyond this document. We need a stabilizing force at the Department of Justice.”

The fund, part of a Justice Department settlement to end a $10 billion lawsuit by President Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leaking of his tax returns, had been scrapped after bipartisan criticism. But Blanche had never put the fund’s termination in writing.

The IRS settlement also included a document providing Trump, his family and affiliates immunity from tax audits. Blanche’s statement clarified that the immunity only pertains to Trump and his family.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., called the votes in favor of Blanche’s nomination “ridiculous.”

“We got nothing, no guarantees whatsoever that this slush fund still can't go forward,” Booker said. “We got nothing that the president of the United States can't cheat on his taxes and have no accountability.”

“To me, it is ridiculous the corruption that we have normalized in America,” he said.

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