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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Just In: House Oversight Releases Transcript Of Bondi Interview; GOP Rejects Multiple Attempts To Kill "Anti-Weaponization" Fund; Sources: John Bolton Reaches Plea Deal Over Sensitive Info. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired June 04, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: He's going to be banned for life from all NBA arenas. The second person also received a lifetime ban for their role in the incident.
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KEILAR: Yeah, it's about to after this.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Breaking news at this hour, the House Oversight Committee has just released the transcript from its closed-door interview with former Attorney General Pam Bondi that occurred last Friday.
This new document gives us our first look at what she said about the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files and about Todd Blanche, the man who President Donald Trump has nominated to be her successor.
I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA.
Let's get off the sidelines. My panel is here along with CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid.
Paula, thank you very much for being here for this breaking story.
What have we learned?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Kasie, two things stick out to me here. The first is the overall tone of this interview is pretty collegial. Her lawyer told me at the time that they found lawmakers were pretty collegial with her because, of course, she was recovering from cancer, as you just showed. She had a bandage across her neck while she did this interview.
But the other big headline here is that she makes clear that when she was attorney general, she delegated responsibility for all things Epstein to Todd Blanche. Here, she tells them that, quote, "as head of a large department with broad responsibilities, I did not need every aspect of this effort nor conduct that document review myself. I delegated that oversight of the process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche."
So she again and again, she makes it clear that the review of those files that mandated a release that resulted in the release of a lot of personally sensitive information and survivor names, that was overseen by Todd Blanche. She was asked, what was your role in carrying out the Epstein File Transparency Act? She said, quote, "Todd Blanche supervised that entire process."
Now she was also asked about Blanche's controversial interview with Ghislaine Maxwell and what she knew about that. She says, quote, "I don't recall how that was initiated. But I believe Deputy Attorney General Blanche at the time reached out to them because there was someone still living in prison who had the potential for information about other co-conspirators and crimes."
Now Kasie, I want to make it clear in this transcript, she's not really critical of Blanche at all. In fact, she has really kind words for him. She says he is, quote, "one of the most highly ethical individuals I know, and I think he is making an incredible acting attorney general," says this investigation was a, quote, "Herculean task with very little error."
Now, while she had those kind words, she does make it clear he is the one who is responsible for overseeing this. And we know the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files has become one of the biggest controversies of the second Trump administration. And going forward, this is going to be important because Blanche is expected to face a high stakes confirmation process. And now, we have two of the biggest controversies of this term about the weaponization fund and the Epstein matter with Todd Blanche's name on both of them.
So this could be a real liability for him. Kasie, I would expect the Democrats will likely be reading portions of this transcript back to him during his confirmation hearing.
HUNT: All right. Paula Reid reporting this breaking news out for us -- Paula, thank you very much for that. But do stand by for us just in case as we continue to cover this.
My panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams; senior politics reporter for "Axios", Marc Caputo; Democratic strategist, former White House director of message planning, Meghan Hays; and Republican strategist, CNN political commentator Brad Todd.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here.
Brad, we'll get to you in a second. I know this is your absolute favorite topic to join us here in THE ARENA.
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Brad's here we're talking about? (LAUGHTER)
HUNT: But Elliot Williams, let me start with you, because as Paula laid out there, the stakes, you know, Todd Blanch suddenly potentially in a bigger spotlight than he was before. She emphasized this all seems to be congenial, but at the same time, Bondi does lay blame for a lot of what happened at Blanche's feet.
Why do you think this is laid out this way?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: For a couple of reasons. Well, big picture, yes, a little odd that something that is so important to the administration, to the Justice Department to whatever else just seemed to not be on the attorney general's radar.
I will note, however, that and I can't understate how much the Office of the Deputy Attorney General runs what happens in the Justice Department building. It is the most important office in the building, quite frankly, far more important and far bigger than the Office of the Attorney General. You know, when you're working there, probably the people that are the biggest pain in the ass to deal with are the Office of the Deputy Attorney General because of how central they are to the operations of the building.
So, the idea that the deputy would be running something like this isn't that surprising. But again, this is the central thing happening that is dogging the president of the United States, who is probably on the phone regularly with the attorney general. The fact that she seemed to distance herself from it seems to be just poor leadership, for lack of any better way to put it.
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HUNT: Yeah, let's kind of drill down on why this is something that is kind of critical to understand. And let's flashback to February of 2025. You may remember that this was right after President Trump took office at the beginning of his second term.
And here was how at that time, Pam Bondi talked about the Epstein files. Watch. Speaker 1
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients? Will that really happen?
PAM BONDI, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, of course, she said that that was on her desk to review, that it was President Trump's directive.
However, in this new transcript, the critical document where Epstein's 10 co-conspirators are listed, the majority are blacked out. She says this, quote, "I don't recall ever reviewing this document, so I don't know who's in it." And that came from the FBI, New York.
Marc Caputo, she's not telling the truth in one of these instances, right? So she says this at the beginning of the term, I've got the list. It's on my desk. And then she tells the committee, I've never seen it. I've never seen the list.
MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: That's the false one.
Bondi, who I covered when she was the attorney general in Florida, had a tendency sometimes to rush to the cameras and speak before she had done her research. And that was the case here. And what she has said and what has been reported about these transcripts to the House is consistent with my understanding of the way in which that office ran under her, is that she was the sort of figurehead attorney general, and Blanche was the guy doing a lot of the heavy lifting, the mechanics of it, and the like.
Also, the general feeling in this administration is this is Donald Trump's administration. And the general feeling in the attorney general's office was, Donald Trump doesn't want us to really deal with this Epstein stuff, so let's just get it over with.
So there hasn't been a lot of attention to detail that went on there and that's also consistent with what she said.
HUNT: Yeah, so again, it's not necessarily a news flash that Bondi said what she said about Todd Blanche because we had reported that at the time based on what Democrats told us after this interview took place.
Let's look at what Robert Garcia had to say back on May 29th. Congressman Garcia, he's next in line to be the -- he may be the next chairman of the Oversight Committee right now. He's a top Democrat on the Oversight Committee after her interview.
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): It is clear in just this part of the -- of the interview that she continues to push all of the investigation and the blame on acting A.G. Todd Blanche.
She said, and I quote, Acting AG Blanche was managing the entire investigation, end quote. And what you're going to hear in that interview and what she's saying here in her words and remarks is that it was Todd Blanche, the current acting AG that was leading the Epstein investigation. And quite frankly, all of the mistakes that we saw, the redactions, not protecting survivors, she continues to push that back onto the acting A.G., Todd Blanche, who, by the way, was Donald Trump's former personal lawyer.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: So that's what Garcia says. Then here's what Bondi says in response to Garcia. She put this post out, "Not true. I praised Acting A.G. Blanche's management of this Herculean task. I said his ethics are beyond reproach and that he is an incredible attorney general."
Marc, let me just stick with you for a second. I mean in this case, both of these things can be true, right? And Elliot, jump in if you want to, right? It can be true that she thinks his ethics are beyond reproach and that he would be an incredible attorney general and also that it's all his fault.
CAPUTO: I think she would take issue. I don't want to be your spokesperson with the verb blame. She wouldn't say blame. She would just say, I was just explaining it.
WILLIAMS: No, I think that's right. I think it's, yes, she's talking about his ethics, but also he was responsible. Maybe that's not, you know, blame's not the word, but he was responsible for what happened here. She's making some distance from it.
HUNT: Yeah. Well, so Brad Todd, I mean, that tells us a lot or says, speaks to how the president of the United States clearly wants to have this handled. And Blanche, in many ways, I mean, he's the one that went down and interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell.
How much of a persistent issue is this going to continue to be for the president?
TODD: Well, first lesson here is be careful when you dismiss one of your cabinet secretaries. And so, as a lesson to all future presidents.
The second thing I think is this continues to be something that the administration has to get over. They have to get it done and over with. And yes, it's Merrick Garland's fault for hanging on to it for four years and the Democrats are being hypocritical because they never said anything when Merrick Garland was in charge of these files.
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But that doesn't mean reality is not that the president has to get past it and get Merrick Garland's fault for hanging on to it for four years and the Democrats are being hypocritical because they never said anything when Merrick Garland was in charge of these files. But that doesn't mean reality is not that the president has to get past it and get it over with.
And I think that this oversight hearing points back to it. And so, you know, I think we all knew Todd Blanche had a big role in this when he went to interview Ghislaine Maxwell. This is not news, but it is one more data point that says we have to get past it.
HUNT: Yeah. Meghan?
MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I mean, I think that Todd Blanche, if he is nominated and goes, he should testify to this before his confirmation hearing. I mean, he -- this is just more lies coming out of the administration. She was the attorney general of the United States.
Why is this -- why is she passing blame to somebody else? It just does not make a lot of sense. The American people don't think it makes a lot of sense.
And to your point, none of these victims were protected and we can't get past it unless they finally do something about it. And nominating Todd Blanche is just going to keep this in the news, which is not good for the midterms.
HUNT: Paula Reid, who is still with us. Paula, can you walk us through how you see this in terms of a potential confirmation hearing, what Bondi's testimony here, how it may impact Blanche's chances of actually getting through the U.S. Senate?
REID: Look, Kasie, it's a problem. I mean, people told me from the moment Blanche was tapped, these are Trump advisors, people who like Blanche, they said the only problem is that he does not get us passed the, quote, "original sin of the Epstein file". So this will come up.
But the fact is Blanche has also been a much more successful attorney general when it comes to pursuing what matters to President Trump, pursuing his political adversaries, also appeasing Republicans and the MAGA base, pursuing issues that really matter to them, be it, you know, protecting abortion protesters or going after the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But this is going to be something that he needs to address. And I think your panelists hit on one of the key issues. They really need to get their messaging straight on what they have done to talk to and communicate with victims. Because so far, the messaging on who met with who and why has been really garbled at best. And at worst, you have those awkward moments like in Bondi's hearing.
So he needs to get that story straight and make it an empathetic, convincing one ahead of his confirmation hearing.
HUNT: Marc Caputo, you're going to jump in?
CAPUTO: Well, be careful in thinking that the MAGA base is cool with Todd Blanch. They don't think there have been enough indictments. what dog Bondi is going to dog him as well.
I mean, one of the things also that's going to be problematic for Blanche, but not as problematic as it would have been a few days ago, was the $1.8 billion weaponization fund, that had senators really steamed. And had Blanche not announced that he was dropping it, that would have more than likely prevented his nomination in and of itself. They had it with him and had it with that.
WILLIAMS: Let's go even further than that. The three things that Todd Blanche's name, and Paula touched on this a little bit, but the three things that his name is quite specifically on are number one, Epstein. Number two, the weaponization fund. And then number three, this targeting or prosecuting of the president's opponents.
Those are three things that even Republican senators take issue with. There's a very small margin in the Senate. They can't lose that many votes. And if these things are going to keep dogging Todd Blanche, he's certainly got a fight ahead of him. He might get confirmed, but it's not going to be a walk.
HUNT: Well, interestingly, we're sitting with someone who actually probably knows where the Senate is. Better than --
WILLIAMS: What I wouldn't give, yeah.
HUNT: I mean, Brad, what is your read on where -- I mean, if they're actually going to push forward with, putting Todd Blanche's nomination on the floor. If so, what happens? And is it because of Epstein or are people opposed to him for other reasons?
TODD: Well, people think Todd Blanch is a good lawyer. And I think being a good lawyer typically gets you confirmed to these positions. And I think there is a consensus inside the Senate Republican conference that he is a good lawyer.
I do think you'll have to answer for this. I think you're exactly right about this, about the slush fund or whatever recrimination fund you're going to call it. That was an absolute impediment. And frankly, it brought the entire Senate to a halt. There are about eight senators --
HUNT: I mean, it's still kind of halted. It's still kind of halted at this very writing.
TODD: There are eight of 53 Republican senators who either have a very public beef with the president or have nothing to lose, one of those two things. And eight out of 53 is kind of bad math if the Democrats aren't going to help you on anything.
So I think that the administration does have to press through this. I think Todd Blanche saying that the fund is dead was the right thing for him to do. He's a smart lawyer. They typically trust him. I wouldn't count his confirmation out just yet, but they're rough days ahead.
HUNT: I just -- I don't think it's being a good lawyer though. I mean, you're 99 percent, I agree with you. I don't think being a good lawyer gets a confirmed attorney general. I think being able to count to 50 and win those votes gets you there. And I just think to your point, eight folks who are just tricky for different reasons as Republican senators who might have a hard time voting.
CAPUTO: If you don't mind me cutting in, we do need to realize one thing is that Donald Trump has sort of had it with the Senate as much as the Senate has had it with him. And in my discussions with people in the administration, they're thinking, well, great, hey, if Todd doesn't get confirmed, fine, we'll go acting. We'll do a bunch of acting attorney general things.
They don't want to be leveraged by the Senate. They figure, the White House, President Trump -- they didn't reform the filibuster.
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They didn't pass the SAVE Act concerning voting. He's done with them.
HUNT: He's done with the Republican Senate.
TODD: You're right, but a reconciliation bill still must pass.
CAPUTO: Got to be a little nice then, doesn't it?
HUNT: Or does he?
All right. Paul Reid, thank you very much for your reporting. Really appreciate it.
The rest of our panel is going to stick around.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we're going to talk with two members of Congress, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, Republican Congressman Michael Lawler. Both of them will be here live this hour as the Senate moves ahead with that massive immigration bill as multiple attempts to block the president's anti-weaponization fund play out.
Plus, the other unfolding drama on Capitol Hill today, featuring a member of the president's Cabinet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LINDA SANCHEZ (D-CA): I think it's pretty safe to say that this is probably the most corrupt Treasury Department in our nation's history.
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: I am going to have to take exemptions with that --
SANCHEZ: And while you dance around questions to protect Trump, Americans are suffering in Trump's spiraling --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:23]
HUNT: Right now on the Senate floor, Republicans are trying to pass a bill that would provide $70 billion in funding for immigration enforcement. But the Justice Department's so-called anti-weaponization fund could derail everything. Earlier this week, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, claimed the fund was no longer moving forward. But then, just yesterday, President Trump suggested it wasn't going away. He said he loved it.
And so, now, some Republican senators are demanding that this must- pass bill include language that ends the confusion and stops the fund for good. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): And the right hand and the left hand need to figure out what the hell they're doing, because I heard a guy who just got put forth as A.G. say it's dead, and if it's dead, we should be able to codify that and be done with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, I want to bring in CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju.
Manu, always good to see you.
What is the latest up there? I mean, this turmoil around this fund seems far from over.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it is severely complicated the passage of this bill. Remember, right before Memorial Day, the Senate Republicans wanted to pass this $70 billion bill to fund the president's immigration priorities, but they had to delay that. They scuttled it altogether because of the announcement by the Justice Department that they'd move ahead with this $1.8 billion fund.
Now, fast forward a couple weeks. Todd Blanche says it's not going forward. Trump says it might go forward. And now Republican senators want some certainty, the ones who are very critical about this. They want to make sure there's language in there codifying that know that weaponization fund will not go forward.
Several Republican senators voted against President Trump to codify that language, including Republican senators who are up for reelection in difficult races like Susan Collins, Jon Husted, Dan Sullivan. But ultimately, they lost by a single vote after Republicans convinced Bill Cassidy, who Trump pushed out of his seat effectively, he ultimately voted with Republican leaders after threatening to kill this bill.
Others are threatening to kill this bill, too, if it does not language going after the DOJ fund, including Senator Thom Tillis, who told me he would be a no on final passage if it does not go after the DOJ $1.8 billion fund.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: If this does not get added to the bill, could you support passage?
TILLIS: No, I'm not going to vote to get off. I voted to get on it with the goal of potentially getting an amendment done or supporting some other member's amendment.
It takes that argument away from the D -- the Democrats. It's a win- win, in my opinion.
RAJU: The president said that today. You would not rule out this fund moving forward again.
REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-PA): I am. I was ruling out that.
This issue is not dead. It's not over. We have to fix the law. I feel very strongly about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: Now, Republican leaders are confident in the Senate that ultimately tonight they can get this bill passed without any language going after the DOJ weaponization fund. But if it does come over without that language, the House, of course, a different animal altogether. Brian Fitzpatrick, you heard there, vowing to do something about it.
So the speaker will have his challenge ahead if and when this comes to the House as soon as tonight -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right, Manu Raju, for us on the Hill -- Manu, thank you, as always.
Joining me now, Republican Congressman Mike Lawler of New York.
Congressman Lawler, always good to see you.
I want to stick with what Manu was just talking about there and what you saw from your colleague in the House, Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who, like you, is in a tough fight for reelection in an area of the country that is one of our few remaining swing districts.
If this bill comes over to the House and doesn't deal with this anti- weaponization fund, are you going to have an issue with that?
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Well, first, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before Congress and made very clear that it is not moving forward. The speaker of the House also made very clear yesterday in conference to all of the members that it is not moving forward. And I listened very intently to the president yesterday And I discussed this last night with Kaitlan Collins. And the president never said it was moving forward. He said he defers to his attorneys. And the attorneys made clear that it is not.
Now, if it is in the bill, fine. If it's not, the bottom line is we still need to fund ICE and CBP. Remember, the reason we're even dealing with this situation is because Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security for 118 days, going back to October 1st. So we need to make sure that the Department of Homeland Security is funded in full, inclusive of ICE and CBP.
[16:25:05]
And that's why we're dealing with this reconciliation bill.
HUNT: Yeah.
LAWLER: The Democrats obviously are trying to introduce many poison pill amendments to create division and create dissension among Republicans. And you guys, lock, stock, and barrel, cover it, of course.
HUNT: Well, no, I mean, look, this situation, they got rid of the Democratic Party.
(CROSSTALK)
LAWLER: The fact is that the attorney general has said it's not moving forward.
HUNT: It's Republicans who might put -- it's Republicans in the Senate who might put it's this into the bill, not Democrats, it's Republicans. So I guess --
LAWLER: The attorney general has said it's not moving forward.
HUNT: Let me -- okay, let me flip that around. You said you paid close attention to what the president said. You've also outlined, and I know this issue is very important to you, you talk at length about immigration enforcement.
Given the importance to you of funding ICE and CBP, if it comes over with an explicit piece of -- you know, with explicit language that says this weaponization fund cannot move forward, would you urge President Trump not to veto it because of that?
LAWLER: Yes, if it's in the bill, I have no problem, because as I said, I'm against the fund. I don't think this is the right way to deal with any legal claims that someone may have if they have a legal claim. There is a process for that, and they can bring that legal claim forward against the government.
There's no question there was weaponization of the federal government under the Biden administration. But if people have a legitimate claim, they can bring that forward. I've not been in favor of the fund.
But with that being said, we do need to fund ICE and CBP, and that's why reconciliation is happening.
HUNT: Congressman, I want to also ask you, you mentioned Todd Blanche, and of course we learned that the president intends to nominate him to be attorney general going forward. Pam Bondi, who was previously served as attorney general, told Congress that he is the one who was responsible for overseeing the release of the Epstein files.
Do you think that the way he conducted himself in releasing those files, do you think the way that that was handled is something that should encourage Republicans to vote to confirm him as attorney general or discourage them?
LAWLER: Well, first, I was not part of that deposition, so I did not hear her testimony. I know the transcript was released within the last 20 minutes or so, so I've not had a chance to review precisely what she said. But the bottom line is you had legislation passed by Congress that frankly was poorly written by Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie because it required millions of records to be released within 30 days. They dedicated over 500 attorneys during the holiday time period to review all of these documents to make sure that information that was classified or should not have been released was not lawfully. They made sure that victims' information was not released and I would think all of us would want to make sure that victims were not put in a precarious position by just doing a mass dump of the information.
So they had only 30 days under the law. They did their level best to comply with the law to get all of the information released. All of the information that was not released is available for Congress to go review at the Department of Justice. Some members have taken them up on that, others have not.
But you have an active open case in the Southern District of New York. As I've said repeatedly, if somebody did something, if somebody committed a crime in furtherance of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, if somebody sexually abused or assaulted young women or children, they should be prosecuted.
And so, the Department of Justice has released all of this information for the public. It is searchable. People can review it. If there is information that warrants prosecution, it should proceed forward.
So, from the standpoint of releasing the information, I do believe they were compliant. I do believe they've done everything they can to release everything without putting victims in harm's way. And there is an open investigation still in the Southern District of New York.
HUNT: Yeah, I just want to put --
LAWLER: And they should prosecute anybody who has committed a criminal offense.
HUNT: I want to put a fine point on something that I believe that you just said. You believe the Justice Department is in compliance with the law that Congress passed to release the Epstein files?
LAWLER: I do. The fact is, you're talking about millions of records, Kasie. And those records that have not been released, subject to the law, subject to existing law as well as the Epstein's Transparency Act that we passed is available for Congress to review. And so they did their level best with millions of records on a 30-day timeline.
[16:30:00]
That realistically was never going to be enough time to release all of these documents and anybody who's being honest about it would acknowledge that.
HUNT: All right, New York Congressman Mike Lawler, always good to talk to you, sir. Thanks for being here. I hope we'll come back soon.
LAWLER: Thank you. HUNT: All right, coming up next, new details on the reporting that broke first here on CNN. What's next for John Bolton after his expected guilty in his federal indictment.
But first, we're going to stay on Capitol Hill with the Senate still voting on amendments as lawmakers weigh whether to block the president's $1.8 billion DOJ fund.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
Here is a live look at the Senate floor where that marathon session of voting is underway.
[16:35:04]
So far, Senate Republicans have rejected multiple efforts to formally kill the Senate floor where that marathon session of voting is underway. So far, Senate Republicans have rejected multiple efforts to formally kill the Justice Department's $1.8 billion so-called anti- weaponization fund. Some Republicans' outstanding opposition to the fund, though, has thrown into question this $70 billion considered must-pass immigration bill.
Joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Coons from Delaware. He sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senator, always good to see you. Thanks very much for being here.
Of course, Republicans pressed their own to sink Democratic efforts to write into this bill that the weaponization fund cannot move forward, but we've also heard directly from North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis that he wants it codified, that this anti-weaponization fund should not go forward. And he seems prepared to help spearhead a Republican effort to make sure that that's part of this bill. What is your expectation about whether that's how this is going to play out?
SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Kasie, I have an amendment that I expect will get a vote later today or late tonight that prevents any payouts from this weaponization fund, to those who were convicted of assaulting police officers on January 6th, I would far prefer that we take up and pass Senator Cassidy's amendment that would just kill it, just shut it down altogether.
But as long as President Trump keeps saying that it's a good idea and that it's not dead yet, we need to keep fighting this tooth and nail. And I'll remind you, just last week when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch was in front of us on the Appropriations Committee, he wouldn't make a commitment to me that there would be no payouts for the January 6th rioters who were convicted of assaulting police. He wouldn't commit there would be no payouts to major Trump donors or the Trump family or to Trump friends.
And I'll remind you, acting attorney general, soon to be nominated for Attorney General Todd Blanche, is responsible for this settlement, this weaponization fund, and another one that would shield President Trump and all of his family members from any future tax audits.
HUNT: Sir, what is your understanding of why Todd Blanche has not wanted to put his repeated on camera assurances to members of Congress that this fund was dead, he won't put it in writing. Why do you think that is?
COONS: Right, because the president doesn't agree and doesn't support it. So I think Todd Blanche has a long history of acting as the president's personal attorney and as attorney general one of the most disqualifying features of his career so far at the Department of Justice is that he is focused on helping carry out a campaign of political revenge and being intensely loyal to the president.
His public comments make it clear President Trump doesn't want this fund to go away. So, we may be here very late tonight and into tomorrow as we work to try and make sure this fund is dead. But Kasie, thanks for also making clear in your opening comments what is the larger goal here?
Republicans are trying to jam through $72 billion more for ICE and Border Patrol. They've already given them tens of billions of dollars in last year's reconciliation, instead of negotiating with us some common sense reforms to hold them accountable to the same standards of policing that every state, county, and city department follows in America. You know, wear a badge, wear a body camera, wear a regular uniform, get a -- get a judicial warrant if you're going to kick down someone's door. That's in the Constitution, in the Fourth Amendment.
There are some pretty simple modifications that we would have agreed to, and instead they're just jamming this money through so that they're going to have an enormous set of resources for mass deportation.
HUNT: You earlier in your comments mentioned that Todd Blanch is going to be tapped formally to be confirmed as attorney general and now currently, of course, in an acting capacity. We learned earlier this hour when the House Oversight Committee released a transcript of their interview with the former Attorney General Pam Bondi. She says that Todd Blanche is the one who oversaw the release of the Epstein files inside the Justice Department.
Do you think that is a black mark on his potential confirmation?
COONS: Absolutely, Kasie. I mean, look, President Trump ran on lowering your costs, making America healthy again, no new stupid foreign wars, and releasing the Epstein files. He's failed on all of those.
And Todd Blanche played a central role in dragging their feet and redacting anything of relevance or value that might have revealed President Trump's actual role with his close friend, Mr. Epstein.
So I do think that that is something that is a reasonable basis for grave concern about whether he is an appropriate person to serve as our next attorney general.
[16:40:08]
HUNT: Sir, big picture, the president's approval rating is obviously very low. The Republican opposition we're seeing to this weaponization fund on the Hill helps underscore the political peril that he's in. There are increasingly conversations that Democrats could potentially win back the Senate.
But the road to that runs straight through the state of Maine. And Graham Platner, the nominee there, has been on Capitol Hill talking to Democrats after some damaging revelations over the weekend.
How high is the level of concern that there could be more that will come out about his record that could make it all but impossible for Democrats to win there? Or should I also say that would make him not tenable as your Democratic Senate nominee?
COONS: Well, Kasie, I'll say that the road back to the majority also runs through states like Iowa and Mississippi, Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota. There's lots of important Senate races on the map this year.
I did not meet with Graham Platner -- with Mr. Platner when he was here this week, and I frankly haven't read the article that apparently just came out this afternoon. My staff just told me about. But I think it's important that anyone who is a candidate to serve in the Senate or who serves in the Senate be held accountable for their conduct.
Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee, for example, in Texas. Just ask his wife or the fellow Texas Republican legislators who impeached him. His ethical standards, his moral conduct is also going to be an issue of great concern in the race in Texas.
So I think it's important that we ensure that folks who serve in the Senate follow a high standard. I also think it's pretty rich for this to be something I'm asked about now every half an hour when we have a president who cheated on his first wife for the second on his second, wife for the third, and paid off Stormy Daniels to conceal it from the American people.
There's a whole lot of bad conduct. I don't condone any of it. And I think it's important that folks who serve in the Senate where I serve follow a reasonably high moral standard.
HUNT: Yeah, we just do want to note, you're referring to a report in the New York Times. That report itself says that they've not independently corroborated some details that are in this "Times" story. "The Times" spoke to a number of women about relationships that they had had with Graham Platner. Now, we here at CNN are working on verifying these claims and reporting this out, which is why I mention all of that.
But, Senator, your point taken, do you have other you know, I mean, this -- the new reporting about some of the things in his personal life, there also was a tattoo of a Nazi symbol that he acknowledged online. He knew it was a Nazi symbol back in 2019, took him years to remove it. Do you have any concerns about that? And what does this say broadly
about just the coarsening of our politics?
COONS: Look, the fact that we have a president who was convicted of sexual assault in a civil trial, was found responsible for sexual assault, and that we've got folks who have served in Congress -- who've committed a variety of infractions of both law and common decency speaks to the coarsening of our politics and our culture. I agree with you. And, you know, frankly, Mr. Platner is a four-term -- excuse me, four-tour combat veteran and someone whose conduct as he came home from war many have questioned.
I don't know him and don't know him at all well, but I'm going to give him a measure of grace and wait until I get a chance to hear more about the details of all these different allegations. In my view, the folks who we have here in the Senate and who we might have here in the Senate, we should hold to high standards.
HUNT: All right, Senator Chris Coons, always a pleasure to have you. Thanks very much for the conversation.
COONS: Thank you, Kasie.
HUNT: Talk to you soon.
All right, ahead here in THE ARENA, the deal, a one-time top advisor to President Trump's making, and whether jail time is an option for former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
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[16:48:38]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
Sources tell CNN that John Bolton, President Trump's former national security advisor, will plead guilty over mishandling sensitive national security information. The president's ally turned adversary is expected to admit to illegally retaining sensitive national security documents, and he'll have to pay more than $2 million in fines. The charge carries a potential prison sentence up to five years.
CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller and CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz joining us now with more on this.
Katelyn, first to you, can you bring us up to speed on the details of this case and walk us through how we got here?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kasie. This does look like the Justice Department is securing a conviction of one of the people Donald Trump has really wanted to see prosecuted and has disliked for quite some time. So John Bolton, in 2018-2019, he was the national security adviser in the Trump been in the SCIF. He would have been in the Situation Room, he would have been learning all kinds of information about foreign entities, foreign powers, including adversaries of the United States, potentially about weapons of mass destruction, and he was taking notes for himself.
He then turned those notes into what prosecutors and others have called diary-like entries, emailing them to himself, and then having them printed out and kept in his home as his personal papers.
[16:50:01]
So the charge he's going to be pleading guilty to and we expect that to happen at the end of June, that is one count of mishandling or retaining classified information or national security information. So it is about those personal papers from what we know from our sources. But the way this came about, it's been a long running case, not one of these quick coming together cases of retribution that we've seen from this Justice Department against others.
This was a case that started to be investigated not long after Bolton had published his memoir whenever he revealed what Trump was doing in the White House. His email was hacked by, allegedly, the Iranians. And then his team, realizing he had been hacked, told the FBI that's when they realized that there were documents in his email or notes he had in his email that captured what was allegedly sensitive national security information.
One thing I should add about this particular charge, Kasie, is that it is a felony. This is a significant charge against John Bolton. In the past, people have been able to plead out to charges like this in cases like this. David Petraeus, for instance, previously had pled out. At that time, the case was a misdemeanor.
This is more serious, and we are waiting to see exactly what the Justice Department asks for and what the judge would do at a sentencing.
HUNT: Well, and because the Iranians might target you and might hack into your email, I mean, that's why these laws exist in the first place, it would seem to me.
John Miller, can you walk us through a little bit? I mean, obviously, the president has made no secret of he has said out loud, I am your retribution to his supporters. And we have seen cases against a list of his perceived enemies. Katelyn touched on why and how this is different. How do you think this is different from some of those other situations?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, Kasie, two things can be true at once. One, he was possibly targeted by the president because he was a high-profile critic and had become a political enemy. On the other hand, the difference between this and, say, the Comey case or the Tish James case are the charges here are undoubtedly substantive. The kind of information, secret, confidential, top secret, top secret SCI, Compartmented information that is contained in these notes and documents that were created.
These are the kinds of things that sending them on a personal unsecured email, sharing them with other people who are definitely not cleared for this information, running the risk of foreign adversaries being able to tap into that unsecured email. This is echoes of Hillary Clinton and her private servers in the State Department.
This is the kind of information that it involved terrorism matters. It involved ongoing negotiations with European allies, but also on Iran and other sensitive matters, Russia, China. This is the kind of information that adversaries could get, the golden nugget of intelligence collection, which is decision advantage.
We know what the president is thinking. We know what Bolton is thinking. We know what the limits of where they'll go in negotiations are. It would have been tremendous intelligence, and the fact that that computer was hacked, allegedly, by the Iranians just goes to show that this wasn't just possible. It probably happened.
HUNT: Fascinating.
John, I also want to ask you about this little bit of breaking news that we just have in here. The president just said in the Oval Office about Bill Pulte, who is, of course, the housing official who was appointed as the acting director of national intelligence. The president said he is not going to be the permanent DNI. The quote from the president is that Pulte is, quote, "somebody just to take it over for a little while," end quote.
What does that mean to you?
MILLER: So what that means is the president knows that the law says the DNI, director of National Intelligence, must have intelligence experience significantly. Pulte doesn't have that. But by making him the acting, he can run in that position in an interim way. And the great concern is because his chief reputation is not that of an intelligence officer, zero there, is that of the president's attack dog.
So the concern is he's going to have access to a lot of classified information. He's going to have a platform where he can call for investigations or say intelligence indicates one thing or another. And he is extraordinarily political and aggressive in terms of targeting people the president doesn't like.
Somebody in the top intelligence job with those proclivities has got to be setting off alarm bells, especially since it is quite clear he's not there because he knows how to do it.
HUNT: Remarkable.
John Miller, thank you very much, as always, for your analysis.
Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much for your reporting.
[16:55:00]
It's always great to have you.
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
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HUNT: All right. Thanks very much, my panel. Really appreciate you all being here today.
Thanks to you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can now stream THE ARENA live or catch up whenever you want to. It is all in the CNN app. You can go ahead and scan that QR code on your screen if you need that.
You can also catch up by listening to our podcast. You can follow the show on X and on Instagram. We are @TheArenaCNN.
But don't go anywhere, of course. The singular Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hi, Jake.
