The headline news today is that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has issued a formal order rescinding the $1.776 billion slush fund that he signed off on as part of the "settlement" of Trump's $10 billion "lawsuit" against the IRS. The scare quotes are because, as Judge Kathleen Williams easily determined, the "lawsuit" was a sham, a scam, a fraud on the court. It essentially amounted to Trump suing himself so that he could get his hands on taxpayer dollars to pay off his private army of January 6 insurrectionists, Since Judge Williams threw the case out of court and denounced the "settlement", however, until today Blanche has refused to formally nullify the slush fund. He has in various ways informally declared it inoperative, but this is not an administration that can be taken at its word, ever, on any subject. Consequently, Republican Senators Cornyn and Tillis, who are leaving office in January and thus no longer beholden to or terrified of their party's fuhrer, have been holding up Blanche's nomination to be full time Attorney General until he would take some binding action to 86 the slush fund.
Congratulations to Senators Cornyn and Tillis for not being entirely brain dead. However, it appears likely that they will accept Blanche's formal rescinding of the slush fund as satisfying their concerns about his nomination, thus paving the way for their votes in favor of his confirmation. If they do so, they will be missing the point. It is not just that Blanche is untrustworthy, a loyal servant of an untrustworthy master. It is not just that the slush fund was a bad thing. It is not even just that they are entirely ignoring the most egregious part of the "settlement", an agreement signed by Blanche that the Justice Department will not prosecute Trump, his sons, or the Trump Organization for past illegalities in tax returns, or subject them to audits. (I wonder why this has not received more attention.)
No, the problem they are sweeping under the rug, now that Blanche has handed them a broom, is that there is no universe in which Blanche should be allowed to continue to practice law, let alone head up the nation's premier law enforcement agency. His role in the IRS "litigation" and its "settlelement" showed him to be fundamentally unethical - not just in generally understood terms, but in the better-defined sense of ethics demanded of lawyers, who are supposed to operate according to a code which forbids them, among other things, to engage in collusive litigation and to commit frauds on the court. This is not just one episode of bad behavior in an otherwise unblemished record. Since taking public office, Blanche has consistently misled, misrepresented, conducted malicious and vindictive investigations and prosecutions, and acted as if he continues to be Donald J. Trump's personal lawyer instead of and often in opposition to pursuing the interests of the true client of his office, the people of the United States and their government. Instead of being exalted to the highest position a lawyer can achieve in the United States outside of the judiciary, Todd Blanche should have his law license yanked.
