Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to condemn a string of racist and sexist remarks made by the man he brought in to help prepare him for his confirmation hearing.
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CNN political reporter Aaron Blake surfaced Blanche’s written responses Tuesday, drawing attention to how Blanche handled questions about his confirmation prep aide’s record, CNN reported.
That aide is Mike Davis — a Trump ally, founder of the Article III Project and former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
In to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blanche was asked to condemn Davis’s past remarks one by one.
Instead of condemning them, Blanche repeatedly distanced himself — cycling through “those are not my words, and they do not reflect my views,” “I do not endorse that statement,” and saying the language was “not something I would use.”
Davis has a history of “offensive statements about women,” senators said — including the time Davis defended Trump against sexual misconduct accusers by asking what Anita Hill, Christine Blasey Ford and E. Jean Carroll had in common, then posted on X that they were “three Democrat women who let Democrat operatives use them like cheap whores. (And liked it.)”
Davis was “overtly racist” in remarks about the Black community, senators said — pointing to his October 2023 post declaring “the violent Black underclass is a danger to America” and “these monsters will kill.”
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The Blanche confidant made “offensive statements about immigrants,” senators said. He declared family separation at the border would be “glorious.” “We’re gonna put kids in cages. It’s gonna be glorious.”
Davis trained his fire on Republican colleagues too, calling Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) “too dumb to be President or VP” and mocking Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) — one of the two Republicans currently holding Blanche’s confirmation in their hands — as “out-of-touch” for supporting legal status for Dreamers.
Blanche acknowledged preparing for the hearing with Davis but declined to detail what happened in their sessions, citing the “confidential nature of hearing preparation.”
Senators also pressed Blanche on whether Davis had lobbied him on a pending merger. Blanche confirmed the two had discussed mergers before the U.S. Department of Justice. He said he had “no personal knowledge” of sworn testimony that Davis threatened to destroy a career Justice Department official’s job if she did not approve the deal.
In a post on X, Davis dismissed Blake’s reporting Tuesday as mere “desperation”, predicting Blanche would be confirmed as the next attorney general “on or before August 6th.”
Cornyn remained still undecided as of Tuesday, and a single Republican no vote in committee would be enough to sink the nomination.
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