If Senate Democrats came to Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing looking for an easy ambush, they did not get one.

President Trump’s nominee to serve as attorney general walked into the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday facing questions about everything from the Jeffrey Epstein files to the Justice Department’s anti-weaponization fund.

Blanche did not duck the controversies. He answered them, pushed back when senators crossed into unsupported insinuation and repeatedly brought the hearing back to the department’s work on violent crime, fraud, cartels and public safety.

Then Sen. John Kennedy cut through the political theater with the basic question hanging over the entire hearing: Is Blanche qualified to lead the Justice Department?

Watch Kennedy deliver his answer:

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Kennedy’s point was not that every decision Blanche has made is beyond criticism. It was that the threshold question should be almost impossible to dispute.

Blanche has served as a federal prosecutor, a criminal defense attorney, deputy attorney general and now acting attorney general.

He did not arrive at the hearing as an outsider asking senators to imagine how he might run the department. He arrived with a record they could examine.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s official hearing record confirms that Blanche appeared Wednesday morning as the sole nominee seeking the office of attorney general. It lists the proceeding for July 15 and identifies Blanche by name and office.

The hearing began at 9 a.m. Eastern in the Hart Senate Office Building. This was a formal constitutional checkpoint, not a friendly cable-news interview or campaign appearance.

Blanche was testifying under the direct scrutiny of the committee responsible for deciding whether his nomination advances. Every answer became part of the record senators can use when they cast that vote.

The official listing identifies the event as a nomination hearing with Blanche as the sole nominee, even though senators ranged across nearly every controversy now surrounding the Justice Department. The questioning therefore tested one person and one decision: whether Blanche should receive the permanent job.

The page records testimony, not a committee vote or a confirmation. Blanche’s nomination remains unresolved while senators build the public record they will use to decide whether he advances.

That makes Wednesday’s exchanges evidence in a live nomination fight, not political clips recorded after the outcome was already settled.

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He faced a committee where Democrats were already lined up against him and where several Republicans had publicly raised concerns about specific Justice Department decisions. A weak answer, a contradiction or an avoidable meltdown could have jeopardized the nomination in real time.

Instead, Blanche looked prepared.

CBS News reported that Blanche opened by arguing that the department is restoring public trust after years in which the justice system was turned against President Trump and others.

He highlighted federal law-enforcement surges, cases against alleged gang members and smugglers, work along the southern border and the department’s expanding fraud takedowns. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said the department is keeping Americans safe and that its record supports that claim.

Blanche was also asked directly about his prior role as President Trump’s criminal defense attorney. When Kennedy asked whether the two men were friends, Blanche initially said he was Trump’s lawyer, quickly corrected that to “was his lawyer,” and explained that he now serves the United States as acting attorney general.

It was a candid answer. Blanche did not pretend the relationship never existed, and he did not let Democrats turn that history into proof that he is incapable of enforcing the law.

That distinction became especially important when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse launched into a string of allegations about FBI Director Kash Patel.

Whitehouse asked how long Blanche intended to “put up” with Patel, referenced his use of government aircraft and even floated whether Blanche was confident Patel was not drinking on the job.

Blanche did not match Whitehouse’s tone. He said he had complete confidence in Patel and refused to validate a smear simply because a senator delivered it from the dais.

Here is the exchange:

That moment captured the central contrast of the hearing.

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Democrats wanted Blanche to accept their premise that President Trump’s Justice Department is inherently corrupt. Blanche kept demanding facts, defending the people working under him and pointing to what the department has actually done.

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Still, this was not a morning without difficult questions.

CBS reported that Blanche faced sustained scrutiny over the proposed $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. He told senators the fund is not moving forward, while Sen. John Cornyn pressed him on why the administration had not made that commitment in writing.

Blanche was also questioned about the settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns. He argued that the agreement does not exempt Trump, his family or his businesses from following tax law on current or future filings.

Then came the Epstein files.

Blanche acknowledged that mistakes were made in the first release of documents and said roughly one percent of the redactions had to be corrected. He took responsibility for those failures, said the department removed and repaired affected documents and maintained that DOJ personnel remain available to speak with victims or their attorneys.

The redaction error is real, and Blanche’s acknowledgment will not end the dispute. He still did something Washington officials often avoid: He admitted the failure, explained the corrective action and stayed in the chair for the follow-up.

He was strongest when the hearing moved from Washington scandal-making to measurable enforcement.

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Blanche said the Justice Department’s fraud crackdown has already recovered billions of dollars in only a matter of months, and he vowed that the effort will continue as long as he remains in the job.

Listen to that answer:

That enforcement record is one reason Blanche entered the hearing with a deep bench of institutional support.

In a statement released before the hearing, the White House assembled endorsements from national law-enforcement organizations, state attorneys general, former Justice Department officials and other public officials.

The Fraternal Order of Police, representing more than 382,000 members, urged the committee to advance the nomination. The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association also backed Blanche, citing his experience, accessibility and work with state and local law enforcement.

The packet included support from 77 former Justice Department officials, Republican senators, pro-life legal advocates and former prosecutors. Those endorsements do not cast a Senate vote.

They make the effort to portray Blanche as an unqualified political hanger-on look increasingly detached from his actual résumé.

The confirmation process is not over.

The Judiciary Committee has scheduled a second day of testimony for Thursday. The witness panel includes former Attorney General John Ashcroft, an Epstein survivor and advocate, representatives of law enforcement and former Justice Department officials.

The official witness list also names Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation President Jon Adler, former Justice Department Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer and Jennifer Bos, the mother of Megan Bos.

That panel gives senators another day to test both the case for Blanche and the objections to his leadership before the committee turns toward a vote.

After that, senators still must decide whether to move Blanche’s nomination to the floor. No confirmation vote occurred Wednesday, and Republican questions about the anti-weaponization fund remain politically important.

But the first round belonged to Blanche.

He absorbed the attacks, defended his team, owned the department’s mistakes and kept returning to a simple argument: The Justice Department should be judged by whether it protects Americans, prosecutes fraud and applies one standard of justice.

For a nominee walking into what was supposed to be a political firing squad, that was about as close to a knockout performance as Senate confirmation hearings get.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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