The GOP delivered one of its most “remarkable” humiliations of President Donald Trump this week, which stunned a former federal prosecutor.
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Last week, the GOP successfully held up Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation to the attorney general job over concerns about the $1.776 billion so-called “anti-weaponization” fund the Trump Department of Justice has sought to create to pay former January 6 rioters and Trump allies who claim they were wrongfully prosecuted by the government. The DOJ is pursuing the fund as part of a settlement between Trump and the IRS in a $10 billion lawsuit that stemmed from Trump’s tax returns being leaked as part of a trove of tax returns released by an agency contractor.
The move was remarkable to Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor, who said on a new episode of “The Daily Beast Podcast” that the move was humiliating to the president, who has gotten used to getting everything he wants from his Republican caucus.
“It is a question of the message,” Weissmann said. “It sends a sort of humiliation to the president and to Todd Blanche, because they do have a majority of Republicans in the Senate, and it means that even though they have the majority, they cannot muster the necessary votes here because they have gone too far.”
Two Republicans, Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), both of whom are leaving Congress in November, held up Blanche’s nomination last week because he refused to put in writing that the Trump “anti-weaponization” fund was dead.
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Trump balked at pulling Blanche’s nomination as negotiations ground to a halt, but also doubled down on his pursuit of the fund by calling on Republicans in Congress to make the fund official through legislation.
“It is hard to understand because it’s one thing for the president to pardon these people because in the Constitution he has that unilateral power,” Weissmann said. “But now it’s not only do I want to pardon you, but I want to pay you like, like talk about like sort of doubling down.”
What made it even more difficult to understand, according to Weissmann, is that it took this long for the GOP to come around on Blanche.
“Todd Blanche … has been found by a federal judge to engage in vindictive prosecution. He was referred in terms of his conduct to a disciplinary board. He, in my view, obstructed the independent investigation of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the two people who were killed in Minnesota. I mean, there’s a litany of things,” Weissmann said.
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