U.S. Senator Adam Schiff reacted on MS NOW's The Briefing with Jen Psaki after the Judiciary Committee postponed the confirmation vote on Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General. Schiff accused Blanche of transforming the Department of Justice (DOJ) into an institution serving President Donald Trump rather than the American people. He pointed to Trump's IRS tax settlement and the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey as examples of what he described as the weaponization of the Justice Department against the president's political opponents. The delayed confirmation vote has intensified the political battle over the future independence of the DOJ and sparked fresh debate across Washington.
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#AdamSchiff #ToddBlanche #BlancheConfirmation #SchiffVsTrump #DOJ #DepartmentOfJustice #AttorneyGeneral #JudiciaryCommittee #JamesComey #TrumpDOJ #JenPsaki #MSNOW #BreakingNews #PoliticalNews #USPolitics #TrumpNews #DOJHearing #WashingtonDC #ConfirmationVote #JusticeDepartment
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00:00Todd Blanche is up for confirmation as Attorney General tomorrow, and there are a lot of reasons
00:05to oppose him. Here's one of them. Did you write this language? Did I write you? Did I type it
00:11up
00:11myself? No. Did you write this language? No. Well, you put your name to it. I did. So that's Todd
00:17Blanche pretending that my question was whether he actually typed up this bogus IRS settlement.
00:24Of course, that's not my question, and he knows it, but you can see from the very beginning,
00:29this is Todd Blanche trying to deflect, as if I was asking him whether he sat at a typewriter
00:35personally. So I pressed him further. So who wrote this? I don't know the person that actually typed
00:42it. I don't know who it is. Was it one of the president's lawyers, or was it someone from the
00:48Justice Department or IRS? This document would have been somebody within the Department of Justice.
00:51But you have no idea who that is? I don't know the name of the person that typed it up.
00:55So there he
00:56is admitting that he doesn't even know who wrote this settlement, this IRS provision that he alone
01:03signed. It wasn't signed by any IRS official. So let's dive into this incredible tax giveaway to
01:11Donald Trump, signed for by his former criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, which reveals just
01:18what a sycophant Blanche is, just how devoted he is, not to the country, not to the interests of the
01:25even enforcement of the law, not to the rule of law, but to the personal wealth, the personal whims
01:32of Donald Trump. So I love you, sir. So this settlement agreement releases, waves, acquits, and forever
01:39discharges each of the plaintiffs, that is Trump and his kids, from ever facing, forever,
01:46barred and precluded from the IRS prosecuting or pursuing any claims against them, causes of action,
01:54appeals, requests for relief of any kind, monetary relief, damages, blah, blah, blah, as of the
02:00effective date of this settlement agreement, which was in May of this year. And it applies to any of
02:06the plaintiffs, any related affiliated individuals, including family and others filing jointly,
02:12or parties, including trusts, parents, sister-related companies, affiliates, subsidiaries. It also goes
02:21to any case or pending claims by the IRS, any lawfare or weaponization. Who knows what the hell that
02:31means? He couldn't even explain it during the hearing. Or any matters currently pending, or that
02:36could be pending for anything before the date of the agreement. So first, let's talk about the suit
02:43that gave rise to this bogus settlement. So Donald Trump becomes president, he loses his re-election,
02:50and he becomes president again. And only after he becomes president again does he decide he's going to
02:58sue the IRS for $10 billion for the improper release of tax returns years earlier by some contractor for
03:07the IRS. So he waits until he's president again to sue them for $10 billion. So you might ask, why
03:14didn't
03:14he sue them in the four years between which he was president and the tax returns released, and he becomes
03:21president again? And the answer is, he wanted the leverage of being president when he brought the suit
03:28because he knew that he would appoint the IRS officials or Department of Justice officials who
03:35would be on the other side of that litigation. And sure enough, he files the suit and he settles with
03:42himself. That is, attorneys representing him at the Justice Department and the IRS and his own attorneys
03:51who brought the suit supposedly negotiate a settlement to take the case that they filed away from the
03:57court before the court could really look into it and reach this collusive agreement. But here's the
04:03thing, the court looked into it anyway. Here's part of what the judge had to say. The court determines
04:09that plaintiffs improperly employed this lawsuit to justify a particular ward in this matter, access to
04:16taxpayer funds and exemption from audits and other investigations, which was accomplished by leveraging
04:22control over defendants, meaning the IRS. The judge also said, the court finds that this matter was
04:29brought for an improper purpose, to gain the impromptu of judicial legitimacy for a settlement that had
04:37no viable basis in law or fact. The judge then referred Todd Blanche to the Bar Association in New York
04:45for potential disciplinary proceedings, for basically committing a kind of fraud on the court. So what did the
04:53judge mean when the judge said that there was really no basis in law or fact for this? Well, several
04:59things.
05:00The judge pointed out that it covers all kinds of parties who weren't even parties to the lawsuit. So Trump
05:07filed
05:07this lawsuit on behalf of himself, two of his kids, and the Trump organization. But the settlement agreement applies to
05:15whole categories of people that had nothing to do with that lawsuit. It includes all of his family
05:22members. It includes all of his businesses. It includes all the subsidiaries of those businesses.
05:28It includes people we don't even know who they are, who are merely listed as affiliates in the settlement
05:34document. So how broad could that universe of people and organizations be? Very broad.
05:42So when Blanche was asked in writing in questions for the record, who are affiliated individuals under
05:49this agreement? Who are related companies under this agreement? His answer was the document speaks
05:55for itself. Well, it most definitely does not speak for itself. We have no idea who these companies or
06:02individuals are. And what's more, you can fully expect that if the IRS were ever to audit anyone
06:08within a thousand miles of the president, they're going to assert they're covered by this agreement.
06:15Some notable companies listed in Trump's financial disclosure that could be covered by this agreement include the
06:22following. Various cryptocurrency wallets where Trump reports over $520 million in income from token sales
06:28associated with World Liberty Financial. A cryptocurrency wallet where he holds $15 billion in governance tokens
06:35in World Liberty Financial worth over $50 million. The Mar-a-Lago Club LLC where he reports $77 million in
06:43income.
06:44Trump's National Golf Club in Washington, D.C. where he reported over $24 million in income. Not to mention
06:51Trump's watches and sneakers and all those other side hustles.
06:55That's not all. Trump's family, his kids, are listed with over 48 other companies that all might get protection
07:05under this sham IRS agreement. Forbes magazine estimated it could be worth over $600 million to the Trump family,
07:15this settlement giveaway. Now, I asked Blanche a lot about this settlement agreement. I asked him, for example,
07:22do you mean to say that of the reported $2.2 or $2.3 billion that Trump earned in his
07:29first year of his
07:30presidency, that this would cover that, that none of that could be audited or looked into? And this was his
07:38evasive answer. So any taxes... He hasn't filed taxes yet for money he made last year, right?
07:42Yes. So if he filed tax returns this year for money he earned last year, that his sons earned,
07:52that his World Liberty Financial, all those people earned and defrauded taxpayers on it,
07:57he faces no liability under this agreement you signed. There's no evidence taxpayers were defrauded
08:01and he is not protected. But there is, there's evidence in this agreement that you've absolved him
08:06of any liability over it. No, I just said he's not absolved. So the question was... So this agreement
08:11doesn't apply to a tax return filed last year or filed this year? To tax returns filed after the
08:17date of the agreement? No. No, before the agreement. A tax return filed in this calendar year before
08:23this agreement? Before the agreement, it applies, not after. Yes. Okay. Now, I don't know whether he's
08:27being duplicitous here or deceptive or dishonest or simply clueless, but the agreement provides that
08:34any tax filings prior to the signing of that settlement document in the middle of May would be
08:40covered, which means if Trump or his organizations or their affiliates or his family file their tax
08:47returns on time, that is on April 15th of this year, to cover all that money, all that business
08:54from last year, it would be protected by this IRS settlement agreement, meaning no audits or examinations
09:02or any of that stuff. Now, I asked Blanche about this, and interestingly, in Blanche's written answers,
09:09he took issue with the use of the word audit, saying that audits aren't even mentioned in that
09:15settlement document. But of course, examinations are mentioned in the settlement document and are
09:22pretty much indistinguishable from an audit. Indeed, during Blanche's own testimony, what did he refer to?
09:29Audits. Here's Blanche talking about audits. First of all, does this purport to release parties
09:38or people who were not parties to the lawsuit? No, Senator. Well, it says here that
09:50claims asserted by defendants or any of the plaintiffs or related or affiliated individuals,
09:54including without limitation, family or others filing jointly or parties, including trust,
10:01parents, sister or related companies, affiliates or subsidiaries. They weren't a party to the lawsuit,
10:06were they? I didn't hear everything you just said, Senator, but the only parties that had any
10:15release as respect to any potential audits, even if they existed, were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
10:20Do you remember Donald Trump's 30-something convictions, felony convictions for the hush
10:26money payments to a porn star, Stormy Daniels? Well, that was a business fraud scheme that was in
10:32part about evading taxes. I asked Blanche about that too. Does that mean that this would be covered,
10:39that any tax liability from that fraudulent hush money payment scheme Trump would be off the hook for?
10:45In the past, the president was convicted in the case you represented him in of falsifying business
10:53records in part for tax purposes. Does this settlement not absolve the president of any liability for
11:01tax crimes associated with what he's already been convicted of? And this was Blanche's answer.
11:06That's not what he was convicted of, not having to do with tax purposes. Well, I'm happy to read the
11:11statement of facts. The participants took steps that mischaracterized for tax purposes the true
11:17nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme. Now, Blanche represented him in that
11:22litigation, in that hush money case. So Blanche ought to know the facts of that case very well. He
11:28ought to know that the statement of facts talked about taxes being one of the reasons that they were
11:34misreported, these hush money payments. So he knows that Trump could be potentially liable for taxes
11:39arising out of that scheme. But here's the thing. Here's the reason why Blanche was dissembling.
11:46And it's because Blanche acknowledged earlier in the hearing that he is recused. That is, he was
11:52advised by ethics lawyers not to participate in any case in which Donald Trump, his former client, was
11:59involved or his representation of Donald Trump was involved. And here it would be an admission against
12:07his own interest to say, yes, he signed a statement relieving Donald Trump of tax liability over a case
12:13that he himself had handled for Donald Trump. But the falsehoods around his ethics and his recusals go
12:20well beyond the tax agreement. So there he is taking credit for the firing of all these people that had
12:25something to do with the Mar-a-Lago investigation of classified documents or the January 6th investigation
12:31of the president. But when I asked him about it, he tried to distance himself from those remarks.
12:36I'm making, I said, there's a statement I gave at CPAC.
12:39Well, you were bragging about this at CPAC, the firing of these prosecutors, the firing of the FBI
12:43agents, the getting rid of everyone who investigated your client. You were proud of that, speaking for the
12:51Department of Justice. But you don't think that's a conflict of interest.
12:54But here's the thing. We subsequently had testimony in a shadow hearing of someone who worked on special
13:01counsel Jack Smith's team, who was one of the public affairs officers. That was, that is, he was a
13:08spokesman for the case against the president. And guess what? His firing was signed by Todd Blanche.
13:17But he fired you, right?
13:19He signed my termination notice, yes.
13:21He signed your termination notice. So what will it take to defeat this nomination of someone who
13:26would put his name on such a sham document and someone who has been referred to a bar association
13:32because of his lack of ethics, someone who has involved himself in matters that he's supposed to
13:38be recused from, someone who's engaged in using the Department of Justice to go after his enemies,
13:43the president's enemies. What will it take? Well, on the Judiciary Committee, there are 12
13:51Republicans and 10 Democrats. So all it would take is one Republican to oppose his confirmation,
13:58to defeat the confirmation, because an 11-11 tie would mean that the nomination does not move forward.
14:05It would just take one Republican. Now, it looks like there is only one Republican
14:10still uncertain about how he's going to vote on confirmation of Todd Blanche. And that's
14:15Texas Senator John Cornyn, who was defeated in a primary because Donald Trump weighed in on behalf
14:22of his primary opponent. So he had a lot of concerns that he raised in part about this agreement during
14:27the hearing. Well, so the settlement agreement remains as it was originally. But I hear what
14:34you're saying. Is it is a settlement agreement enforceable as a contract by the parties?
14:42Well, yes, it's an enforceable document. So I suppose if President Trump's counsel sought to enforce
14:49it, that they potentially could. Including including the weaponization fund? Well, they could try to
14:55enforce the contract. Reportedly, he is seeking some kind of a deal, some kind of a negotiation
15:01around this settlement in order to procure his vote for Blanche. I just hope he doesn't ask for too
15:08little. I mean, I would hope that he would oppose it under any circumstance. But nevertheless,
15:14there is one holdout thus far. So we will see what happens tomorrow. But this settlement agreement,
15:22this fraud on the court, this sham settlement tells you all you need to know really about Todd Blanche
15:28and his willingness to do anything to help his former boss, his current boss, corruptly enrich himself.
15:38Reminds me a bit of this.
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