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The Situation Room

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche Faces Confirmation Hearing. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2026 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is off today. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Happening now, the breaking news: The acting, repeat, acting attorney general of the United States, Todd Blanche, is still up on Capitol Hill answering questions from senators, facing very serious questions from members of the Judiciary Committee as he tries to convince them that he should have the job full time and be confirmed as the attorney general of the United States.

He's answering questions from Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee right now.

TODD BLANCHE, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: What happens going forward? We keep on doing it. Memphis -- there's restaurants opening in Memphis. There's stores opening in Memphis. There's -- it's a new city compared to where it was one year ago.

And that's something that we can't let up on. And -- but, again, I look at it as a poster child of what we should do in cities across this country.

SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): And we are pleased to know that you all are doing a model city program at DOJ in order to help with public safety in other areas.

BLANCHE: Yes.

And that's not just for Memphis, but for several cities around the country, where we are going to give -- put money where our mouth is and put a lot of resources into the cities to help make sure that cities that need to be safer are safer, and if they're on the right track, that they have the resources they need to keep doing it.

BLACKBURN: When you were in the office, we talked about my carjacking bill that would lower the intent standard to a general knowingly requirement, giving the prosecutors, federal prosecutors, more tools so that they could hold some of these violent carjackers accountable. We thought it was going to move with the NDAA, and Leader Schumer has

blocked that, and we're disappointed. It's a bipartisan bill. But talk about the importance of lowering that statute so that we can prosecute these crimes.

BLANCHE: Yes, it's a -- it needs to be done because there are -- carjacking not only in Tennessee, but in every city in this country, has gotten out of hand. The criminals are better at it than they that they -- they have tools that make it easier to get into cars.

They're willing to exact violence, and so the standard that exists now under the statute, but also because of certain cases, make it higher than a regular general intent crime. And law enforcement and prosecutors will do the right thing. So we need to be empowered with tools to prosecute these cases.

And if there's cases where somebody was in the car and didn't know, prosecutors are not going to move forward. They will do the right thing, but it shouldn't be the law that puts the damper on that. And so I'm hopeful that we can continue to work together on that and that -- because it is very important.

BLACKBURN: There was a deeply disappointing decision from the court and the Trump v. Barbara case that it's clear that Congress and the -- we're going to have to step up and do something about birthright citizenship. And this is our opening.

We know that birthright tourism is something that is taking place in our country. We know that during the first Trump administration, there was a good bit of evidence on this. I have had a banned birthright tourism bill that would block these 33,000 births a year from people who are circumventing our laws and coming here simply for the purpose of giving birth.

It's primarily the Chinese and it is also the Russian oligarchs that are exploiting this. And my bill would make coming here to give birth inadmissible as a way to obtain a visa and deportable, immediately deportable, as an offense.

And touch on why Congress needs to act and give the administration more tools to enforce this.

BLANCHE: Yes.

So the very day or the day after the decision came out, the Department of Justice issued a directive to prosecutors to focus on the conduct you're describing using existing laws and tools that we have, which is mostly around false statements or fraudulent information in the visa application process.

We're going to do that. And that's pretty much -- we are limited in how we can prosecute folks that are coming here for -- and lying about why they're coming here and coming here just to give birth, and also the organizations that are facilitating that.

Any congressional statutory adjustment -- the Supreme Court opinions relied in part on the statutory part of this that would control -- would give us more tools and would give the president more tools to keep out people who are absolutely not coming for the right reason, only coming to give birth.

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BLACKBURN: And you're doing a great job on fraud and going after fraud that has been committed. The Fraud Task Force seems to be working well.

And from Tennesseans, I hear a good bit about this. They want the fraudulent activity to stop. It's taxpayer money. And they want their money to be used wisely. We have had legislation that would apply to individuals that have come into the country either illegally or maybe they have been naturalized citizens.

But the Fraud Accountability Act would push for that deportation and denaturalization if they have been found to be defrauding individuals or local, state or federal government. And I wish -- I am over time, and I will ask you for this in writing since I'm over my time. But I would like to hear from you why it is important to put more tools in that toolbox for you all to go after these individuals that are defrauding the U.S. taxpayer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BLANCHE: Thank you.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA): Before I call on Senator Coons, Senator Durbin would like to speak for a short time.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): Very short. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Based on the statements just made by the senator from Tennessee. We have checked the transcript of the committee. During the November 30, 2023, Supreme Court ethics subpoena authorization markup, I chaired and attempted to recognize Senator Blackburn multiple times so that she could offer amendment regarding Epstein's flight logs.

But her Republican colleagues prevented her from doing so by filibustering and then invoking the Senate rule on two hours to end the markup. Many Epstein records, including flight logs, have been public for years. My staff subsequently reached out to Senator Blackburn to work to identify which records she actually wanted and still believes had not been made public.

To this day, she's never responded.

BLACKBURN: Mr. Chairman, since he mentioned my name, I have previously and will continue. There is video, there is a transcript, and, Mr. Blanche, I will be happy to forward that to you.

GRASSLEY: Senator Coons.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. Acting Attorney General Blanche, thank you for your service and for

appearing here. And thank you to your family. And to the men and women of the Department of Justice who work tirelessly to fight crime and to make our nation secure, I am grateful for their service.

I am sorry that your schedule apparently didn't permit us to meet before this confirmation hearing, but I hope and expect we will find time to meet soon after today.

BLANCHE: Absolutely.

COONS: Thank you.

As I consider your nomination, like all other nominations to similar Cabinet positions, I need to know you are qualified to serve -- you demonstrably are -- that you have the policy views to serve well -- we will discuss that today -- and most importantly in this role that you have the independence to serve as the attorney general for the American people.

And that last question has troubled me the most. You are in charge of a Department of Justice I don't recognize, prosecuting the president's political enemies, firing rank-and-file prosecutors and FBI agents because of the cases they were assigned to, slashing grants for law enforcement and public safety.

These are some actions that, in your previous confirmation hearing before us, you said you would not take. Now, I appreciate your statement walking back the $1.8 billion weaponization fund that you created, but I question how it got that far, and we will get into that.

You sat in an Appropriations hearing earlier this year before me and defended it at that time. In fact, if I remember correctly, you told me I was wrong for criticizing it. But following questions by Senators Durbin and Cornyn, I am concerned it is not dead yet, and I think we should talk that through.

Overall, this is not what I believe the American people expect or deserve from the Department of Justice. Having spent critical parts of January 6 in this room taking shelter from the mob, I just wanted to open with some questions.

How many people were convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers on January 6?

BLANCHE: I believe around 120 approximately, but I could be off a few more, a few...

(CROSSTALK)

COONS: You are.

The answer is more than 200. And how many of those individuals had their sentences commuted or were pardoned by President Trump?

BLANCHE: President Trump either commuted or pardoned every defendant from the January 6 events.

COONS: That's correct.

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And in this room right now and outside this room are Capitol Police officers protecting us in this hearing room. How many of them do you think might have friends or colleagues who were attacked by supporters of the president on January 6?

BLANCHE: I don't know the numbers, but I am sure many of the Capitol Police officers who are here today worked either -- were working on January 6 or knew people who were.

COONS: I will just say that I consider it a shameful slap in the face of the men and women of law enforcement for those convicted of assaulting police officers to have been pardoned.

I know you were not serving as deputy attorney general when President Trump pardoned those folks, but you said just a few moments ago that you were not celebrating this decision by the president. He was exercising his constitutional power.

But earlier this year in front of CPAC, a conservative event, I would say, from the transcript, you actually trumpeted it as an achievement.

And I quote, saying: "If you look at what happened to the men and women convicted because of January 6, by 5:00 p.m. on January 20, every one of them was either pardoned or had their sentence commuted by President Trump. So, when folks say you have done nothing, I say you have a very short memory."

Would you say that you are proud of President Trump's decision to pardon individuals who assaulted law enforcement?

BLANCHE: No, that's not what I was saying there at all, Senator.

So I was responding to inquiries around why more hadn't been done by the Department of Justice with respect to January 6 defendants. And so my answer was that they -- January 6 defendants and some of their lawyers had a short memory, because a lot had already been done. Indeed, by the end of the day on January 20, they had all been pardoned or commuted.

So I wasn't celebrating it. I was merely stating a fact, which is that the January 6 defendants did receive a very generous pardon or commutation from President Trump, every one of them, on January 6.

COONS: A generous and, in my view, for those who had assaulted police officers, unwarranted, unjustified, ahistorical, and a terrible precedent.

Let me move on to questions I have asked in previous hearings. Is President Trump, just as a simple matter of constitutional law, eligible to run for another term as president in 2028?

BLANCHE: I don't believe he is, no.

COONS: That is a correct, in my view, reading of the plain language of the 22nd Amendment. Why do you think several of the judicial nominees of this administration have refused repeatedly to answer that question simply and clearly as you just did when I put it to them?

BLANCHE: I have no idea why they answered questions...

(CROSSTALK)

COONS: Me neither. It was confounding.

BLANCHE: I mean, you're asking me to speculate about something. I don't know.

COONS: Is the Department of Justice that you are running independent from the White House?

BLANCHE: The Department of Justice, like every single department in the executive, is part of the executive. I mean, Article Ii of the Constitution gives the power of the executive to President Trump. So we certainly operate with integrity. We certainly operate in the single mind-set to serve the American people and do the right thing.

But I am a member -- if confirmed, I will be a member of the Cabinet. I am serving in the acting capacity that way now, just like the other Cabinet members, and President Trump can fire me whenever he wants. So...

COONS: Do you have a sense why he fired your predecessor?

BLANCHE: I have no idea. I mean, President Trump -- we all serve at the pleasure of President Trump in this administration. And as...

COONS: Did President Trump ever post on TRUTH Social directing your predecessor to get at it, to prosecute his perceived political enemies?

BLANCHE: I don't think those were his exact words.

COONS: Those were not his exact words, but clearly that was the intention.

(CROSSTALK)

COONS: It is my impression, sir, that you are here, rather than your predecessor, because the president was unhappy with her failures to actually secure convictions of folks like Attorney General Tish James or former FBI Director Jim Comey.

If you're confirmed and you are asked to take an action you believe to be illegal or unethical, would you resign?

BLANCHE: That will never happen, but, yes, if it were to happen, I'm not going to violate my oath to the Constitution.

COONS: I appreciate that answer.

You did answer a question by a colleague about input that you gave to the president. Did you ever say no to the president on the slush fund, the anti-weaponization fund? Did you advise him against it?

BLANCHE: I am not -- will not talk about communications I have with the president. I served as his lawyer for a couple of years before he was elected. I am the deputy attorney general. I'm the acting attorney general. So I'm not going to talk about communications that I have with him.

But, Senator, I will say that President Trump trusts me to give him counsel. Counsel does not mean a yes-man.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: And so that's -- and that's true in my case, like it should be in any attorneys general's case.

COONS: Let me just for a minute bear down on the anti-weaponization fund.

You have testified to the House, "We are not moving forward with that fund, period." But you have repeatedly refused to put that commitment in writing or to submit a declaration to the court. You are an officer of the court, a member of the bar. You should be able to make that assertion in a court or even in a letter submitted to this body.

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On May 19, you testified before the -- the Appropriations Subcommittee, since the case had been dismissed, there was no judge and no mechanism for judicial review.

But in an opinion this week, a federal judge wrote -- and I'm quoting -- that your testimony was at best misleading and at worst disingenuous, explaining the court remained available to review this agreement had you sought relief.

Why not seek review of the settlement agreement or submit some record, some writing, given that the president continues to publicly champion this weaponization fund, and given your previous answer to me in another hearing that you wouldn't say whether or not those who assaulted cops on January 6 would be eligible for multimillion-dollar payouts?

BLANCHE: So there's a lot of questions there.

COONS: Indeed.

BLANCHE: First of all, we have put it in writing. It's in repeated court filings in EDVA and D.C.

So this narrative that you won't put it in writing happens not to be true. The reason why neither myself nor Secretary Bessent agreed to put a declaration in is because there's longstanding precedent that judges cannot ask Cabinet secretaries or people like me to put in declarations.

It has nothing to do with the -- whether the fund is alive. I am under oath today, and I have said it, said repeatedly. I said it to the House Oversight Committee. And I am happy to say as many times as necessary.

As far as what...

COONS: Thank you.

BLANCHE: ... the judge said in Florida, just the last question you asked about Florida, that judge disagreed with what I said. I still believe the 11th Circuit precedent, which I have studied, I am right. So we will see.

COONS: Thank you.

You did say earlier: "This is the most transparent Department of Justice in American history. We have nothing to hide." And you started by saying we're here to rebuild trust.

Two decisions or two OLC opinions, I'm very interested in. I'm the senior Democrat on Defense and Intelligence Approps. I'm the most senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee on my side who is currently serving on this committee.

I'm curious as to why the most transparent department has refused to release the OLC opinion that justifies the 66 strikes the military's conducted on boats in the Caribbean which have killed more than 220 people, either a redacted version or in a classified setting to me and others who are in relevant decision-making positions.

BLANCHE: Well, Senator, we made the head of OLC available on multiple occasions to explain that to you and other members of the committee. And that is extraordinarily transparent and unprecedented that we have done that.

Whether an OLC opinion is released is -- there's a lot of process that goes into that. But the idea that we were not transparent about our legal basis there is absolutely not true.

COONS: OK.

Another chance to be transparent. The FISA court in March certified your Section 702 proceedings, but found compliance deficiencies. This is an important power of the federal government that will soon be up again for vote, and you have not declassified that opinion.

Senators cotton and Warner, Republican and Democrat leads on intelligence, in April wrote the administration saying that they expected declassification of this March opinion within two weeks, yet it remains classified. You have a bipartisan request from the leadership of Intel. Will you declassify it or make it available to us?

BLANCHE: We will continue to look at that. I agree with you that that's a very important issue, and we need 702 reauthorized.

COONS: Thank you.

Last question, if I could. The Safer Supervision Act is co-sponsored by Senators Lee, Cornyn, Tillis, and Lankford, and it gives a path forward to making sure that federal probation and parole is more effective. We have discussed it before. Will you meet with me to talk about ways that this important criminal justice reform supported by federal law enforcement could move forward?

BLANCHE: I think that that effort...

GRASSLEY: Please give a short answer to that.

BLANCHE: I think it's -- yes, absolutely. I very much agree with what you are trying to do there, Senator.

COONS: Thank you.

GRASSLEY: Before I call on Senator Schmitt and after Schmitt gets done speak -- questioning, we're going to take a 15-minute break, and that 15-minute break starts when you leave the chair and be back in at the 15th minute.

Before then, I would like to enter into the record for your -- supporting your nomination from 382,000 members of the National Fraternal Order of Peace. The letter emphasized Mr. Blanche's distinguished record of public service and his commitment to work closely with law enforcement across the nation.

The letter states -- quote -- "We believe Mr. Blanche's leadership will help ensure that the Department of Justice remains focused on public safety, the rule of law, and providing unwavering support for the law enforcement professionals who risk their lives daily to protect our families" -- end of quote.

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Without objection, it'll be entered.

Senator Schmitt.

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Blanche, welcome.

You are -- you're entering this arena and this confirmation hearing as the nation's chief law enforcement officer at a very interesting time in our country's history, where the folks on the other side of the dais, the Democrats, in my view, have just taken an all-out assault on the men and women of this country who serve in a law enforcement capacity.

We just a couple of months ago got through a government shutdown where I was on the Senate floor listening to things that I never heard certainly an elected official say in characterizing the men and women who serve this country to enforce its laws, calling them the Gestapo, President Trump's secret police, mass mercenaries.

This is insane. These calls to defund ICE, this hammer and sickle wave that came through New York just a few weeks ago that's now dominating the discussion on the other side of the aisle, the central plank, of course, is defunding the police, assaulting, overthrowing Western civilization, this is not your grandfather's Democrat Party.

And your fielding questions that I think are totally unfair, but it's all meant, I think, to undermine and demoralize. I saw it in my time as attorney general in Missouri, where we had a Soros-funded prosecutor who refused to prosecute crime.

And police officers, many retired early. Fewer came into the ranks to protect and serve. And so you're coming at an important time. I think President Trump, like he has with the military, has inspired the men and women on the front lines to serve.

You're helping, I think, restore that with your focus on violent crime, your focus on fraud. I heard one of my colleagues say that this is the most troubled Department of Justice in history.

I happened to live through the previous administration, where you had a Department of Justice completely weaponized against political opponents. They tried to throw their chief political opponent in jail, ruin his family's lives. You were his lawyer to see some of that, and I was with you in a courtroom in New York to witness that defense in one of those cases.

BLANCHE: Yes.

SCHMITT: Were aimed against Catholics in this country who happened to attend a traditional Catholic Latin mass, went after parents under the Patriot Act for showing up to school board meetings to object to Critical Race Theory or the masking of their kids.

We lived through Jack Smith, and the chairman has just revealed new revelations, of course, that he was reading text messages. By the way, Jack Smith testified under oath he didn't do that. He testified that they just had the phone logs. We know that's not true now.

Jack Smith should be subject to prosecution for lying to Congress. So this weaponization, let's draw a distinction. When you go after your political opponents, that is a weaponization. When you hold people accountable who weaponize the justice system, that's not the same thing.

So you have a very important job. I want to highlight a few things that you have done in your time as acting attorney general, hopefully, as attorney general, you're confirmed. You created the National Fraud Enforcement Division. I think this is very, very important.

I think it's the tip of the iceberg, what we're seeing in Minneapolis, in California and places that I think the work will continue. Carried out the largest health care fraud takedown in department history, expanded the fight against Medicaid fraud after the $90 million Minnesota fraud takedown. You secured six fraud convictions involving more than $1.1 billion in

less than three weeks, cleared the backlog of immigration cases, allowing for deportations, more deportations. You filed a historic number of denaturalization cases. You secured major anti-DEI wins against IBM and PayPal.

You ended the EEOC's racist disparate impact regime. You secured 450 years of prison time for Antifa members involved in the terrorist attacks against ICE. You prosecuted the Southern Poverty Law Center for secretly funneling millions of dollars to the KKK and neo-Nazis.

That's a pretty -- that's a hell of a record in 100 days. But more work continues. I want to talk about a few things that I'd like to -- and I'm going to allow you to answer -- to focus on. First I think we have to break this sanctuary city scam, the system.

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To the people watching or listening at home, what is a sanctuary jurisdiction? Here's what it means. It means that if you are a criminal child rapist, and you're here illegally, and you've been released from prison, they will not tell federal immigration authorities that you're being -- that that person is being released.

They would rather have that individual, that monster released into the community than be deported. That's how sick this regime is. And so we were able to secure in the ICE funding, I was able to secure in the ICE funding $350 million to clean up this mess to allow ICE in those sanctuary jurisdictions to actually carry out those deportations, sanctuary cities be damned.

Will you use every tool that you have in your toolbox to go after these sanctuary jurisdictions?

BLANCHE: I mean, absolutely. You just hit the nail on the head when you described one example, but there are thousands of examples of our law enforcement agents being put at risk because, instead of going into a jail to arrest somebody or take somebody who's here illegally, even with a final order of deportation, that individual gets released in the community, and it puts everybody in the community at risk.

It puts law enforcement at risk. It's not consistent with the law. And so, yes, I definitely pledge to you that we will do everything that we can at the department to combat that.

SCHMITT: The second one is to crush the machinery that converts illegal conduct into political power for the left. And I'm talking about the racial gerrymandering, the straw donations, foreign money, identity theft, fraudulent online contributions, the nonprofits that finance extremism while lying to their donors.

Will you enforce the Constitution and Voting Rights Act against unlawful racial gerrymandering and investigate credible evidence of straw donations, foreign contributions, identity fraud, and other legal activity through Act Blue or other fund-raising platforms?

BLANCHE: Yes. Of course, Senator, yes.

SCHMITT: Thank you.

Third, protect free speech from the new censorship machine. Search engines determine what information Americans find or more and more reliant on these things. App stores determine which platforms can reach the public. A.I. systems increasingly determine which claims are treated as true, false, respectable, extreme, or beyond discussion.

Will you enforce a zero tolerance policy for federal officials who pressure technology companies to suppress lawful speech and work with Congress to expose communications between federal agencies and the companies controlling search, social media, app distribution, and A.I.?

BLANCHE: Absolutely, yes, Senator.

SCHMITT: Thank you.

I want to just give for the 2.5 minutes I have left with my time, I guess give you an opportunity. You saw what happened to the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland and the dirtbag Jack Smith and under Joe Biden's regime.

What lessons do you draw from that?

BLANCHE: The biggest one is that is that the Department of Justice belongs in the business of protecting our communities.

And so when I talked about during my opening statement about bringing the violent crime rates down and combating fraud and going after the fentanyl crisis in this country, that's the lesson I learned, is that we do not need to be spending millions of millions of dollars, bringing hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of prosecutors to D.C. to go after literally an entire administration, yes, the president, yes, his family, but also anybody that knew him, anybody that worked with him.

His gardener at Mar-a-Lago was targeted. We should not be doing that. We should be arresting bad guys. We should be -- and that's what we're doing. So we're empowering assistant U.S. attorneys around the country, FBI, ATF, Marshals, DEA, HSI agents, to go out and make communities safe.

And, in my mind, that where it comes to the federal government, that's combating drug dealing, combating illegal immigration, narco- terrorism, using our HSTF task forces, and, above all, and just as importantly, is fraud and bringing money that is stolen from the American taxpayer and getting it back and putting the guys responsible in prison.

That's what I have learned, is that we can just go out and do our jobs and we can do it. There will be noise in D.C. Like I said, we prosecuted nearly 100,000 informations and indictments since January 20. We're talking about three or four.

And that's the message that I take to prosecutors around the country.

SCHMITT: Thank you.

And I also want to thank you. Early on with this administration in Kansas City, but specifically in St. Louis, working with the department, Kash Patel, others, St. Louis got the largest infusion of permanent FBI agents anywhere in the country. And they're helping clean up the streets. People feel safer. It's a great American turnaround as it relates to crime.