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Sen. Thom Tillis criticized Democrats on Wednesday for “situational ethics” before asking attorney general nominee Todd Blanche about his views on President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons and the “1776 fund.”
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Beginning Wednesday morning, Blanche sat for a five-hour hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee answering questions from lawmakers ahead of their vote on whether to confirm him. If they do, his nomination will go before the full Senate for final approval.
Blanche currently serves as acting attorney general after Pam Bondi was ousted from the position. Trump nominated Blanche on June 8, to take Bondi’s place after becoming frustrated with her for the botched rollout of the Jeffrey Epstein files and failure to prosecute his political adversaries.
Blanche’s nomination drew immediate concerns from some lawmakers due to his close relationship with Trump. He previously served as Trump’s defense attorney.
Others raised concerns about whether the Department of Justice could maintain independence with Blanche at the helm.
The majority of questions Wednesday focused on three other topics:
Tillis, a Republican from Huntersville, spoke favorably about Blanche prior to Wednesday’s hearing, telling McClatchy last week that Blanche helped him end the investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, an investigation Tillis strongly opposed.
But political observers wondered if Tillis could make or break Blanche’s nomination over both the pardons of the insurrectionists and the “1776 fund.”
Tillis’ turn to question Blanche came nearly three-and-a-half hours into the hearing.
And he began his 10 minutes focused on his Democratic colleagues, saying they failed to speak up when President Joe Biden made last-minute pardons of his son, Hunter, and others who had yet to be charged with crimes. He said they failed, too, during the Biden administration when Trump was indicted 88 times over four cases for crimes ranging from falsifying business records to conspiracy to obstruction of Biden’s election certification.
Tillis, always ready with a pop culture reference, accused Democrats of using a device from “Men in Black” that erases their memories.
“It’s remarkable that these people sat before this committee when all that was going on and not a whiff,” he said. “I hate duplicity, and I hate situational ethics, and I want to lay the groundwork to say, I was against that, and I’m also against some of the decisions of the president.”
One of those decisions: pardoning people who participated in the Jan. 6 attack. But Tillis made a distinction Wednesday that he believes that there is a difference between people who did “something stupid” that day and those who harmed police officers or destroyed parts of the Capitol.
And then he turned his attention to Blanche, telling him he was not against him.
“You work for somebody, and you’ve got to do what you’re told to do,” Tillis said. “And I hope you stay within the ethical bounds of the law. You have to answer to the bars (that oversee lawyers) and everyone else, but it’s just jarring to hear people criticize this administration when they can’t look in the mirror and ask themselves why they weren’t criticizing an administration when they happen to have on a blue jersey.”
Despite those comments, Tillis is not yet sold on voting for Blanche, he told reporters outside the hearing after finishing his line of questions Wednesday afternoon. Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from Raleigh, took to social media urging senators to vote no on Blanche.
Tillis told CNN’s Manu Raju he is “leaning yes” on Blanche.
But he told Raju that he wants more done to codify that the “1776 fund” is dead, with legislation in place to ensure that.
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He told Blanche as much during the hearing, asking if Blanche would provide technical assistance to get language created that he could take to the Senate floor, endorsed by the administration, that once and for all “puts a fork” in the fund.
“Why can’t we agree to language that I can walk down to the Senate floor and get a (unanimous consent agreement) and dare the Democrats to oppose ending this; and dare a Republican to if the president supports it,” Tillis asked. “Why is that a bad strategy?”
Blanche told him it’s not.
Tillis also asked about the Jan. 6 defendants, adding that it is one of his gripes against the Trump administration. He asked Blanche if he could tell him “definitively that you think that any Capitol police officer who was harmed on Jan. 6 was a victim of a heinous crime at the hands of the person who did it.”
“Yes, and should have been prosecuted, and was,” Blanche said.
Blanche faced criticism from several senators about Trump’s pardons to everyone involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, was among them.
“You have vacated seditious conspiracy convictions against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers,” Whitehouse said. “You hired Jan. 6 rioter Jared Wise, who had urged the mob to kill police officers. You scrubbed press releases about Jan. 6 prosecutions and called the releases partisan propaganda. You denied that Trump encouraged any violence on Jan. 6. You’ve cleaned house of every attorney who worked on a case related to Trump, and you’ve bragged that bringing justice for violent rioters meant that every one of them was either pardoned or had their sentence commuted. I hope that our colleagues who are concerned about what happened (on) Jan. 6 take that into account.”
Blanche pushed back, calling “almost everything” Whitehouse said, “a lie.” Whitehouse then required Blanche to submit proof in writing.
Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, asked Blanche about comments he made at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where Coons said Blanche trumpeted the pardons as an achievement by the Trump administration.
“I wasn’t celebrating it,” Blanche said. “I was merely stating a fact, which is that the Jan. 6 defendants did receive a very generous pardon or commutation from President Trump.”
Democrats weren’t the only ones pushing back against Trump.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, told CNN he has no idea how he plans to vote on Blanche. And he focused on the “1776 fund.”
Neither Trump nor Blanche has put anything in writing that agrees the fund won’t be revitalized.
Cornyn questioned whether Trump or another plaintiff could bring a breach of contract lawsuit against the settlement to revive the fund.
Trump sued his IRS after his tax returns were leaked. Part of the settlement was to create the “1776 fund” and to ensure that neither he nor his family members or businesses could be prosecuted for past tax filings. There was immediate backlash to the settlement, especially the fund, after Blanche said people convicted of Jan. 6 crimes could apply for the money.
Tillis at one point called it “stupid on stilts.”
Blanche told Cornyn that technically a breach of contract lawsuit could be filed, but would be moot because there is no fund.
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