'Crickets' as Todd Blanche just hours away from violating judge's order
Far Left
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is just hours away from violating a judge's order on President Donald Trump's January 6 slush fund after thumbing his nose at it for weeks.U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent until Friday afternoon to file sworn declarations confirming the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund is dead.As of Friday morning, nothing had been filed.Journalist Scott MacFarlane wrote that he had been checking the court docket all morning."Crickets," MacFarlane wrote.Brinkema extended her block on the fund on June 12 after ruling that Blanche's verbal claims to Congress were insufficient. She demanded written sworn declarations from both officials.The judge noted that Trump himself said after Blanche's testimony that he wanted to move forward with the fund — comments she said carried "a lot of weight," MS NOW reported.The fund was created through a private settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. Critics noted it could pay Jan. 6 defendants, including those convicted of assaulting police officers.Pooja Boistute, senior counsel at advocacy group Democracy Forward, said after the June 12 hearing she "honestly" did not believe Blanche and Bessent would comply."I think it will tell...a lot to the court that they have represented that they're terminating the fund, and there's no evidence to support that," Boistute said.It is not the only court where Blanche faces jeopardy. Georgetown Law professor and former senior Justice Department official Marty Lederman argued this week that a federal judge already has sufficient evidence to order a criminal contempt trial against Blanche over deportation flights that defied a court order in March 2025."While mistruths and obfuscation may be the standard playbook for the Trump-Vance administration, it is telling that they have repeatedly refused to say under oath that the Slush Fund is truly dead," said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward.If Blanche and Bessent file a sufficient declaration, the preliminary injunction will remain in place. If they don't, the court has said the case will proceed with the injunction in place.
With Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche refusing to commit to a federal court in writing that the Trump "Anti-Weaponization Fund" will be canceled, he has a new problem, analyst Scott MacFarlane told MS NOW's Katy Tur on Friday: backlash from the Senate Republicans reviewing his nomination to serve as attorney general permanently."So the question I had earlier ... is how Republicans are going to react to this," asked Tur. "Are they still going to be content to take Todd Blanche's word for it?""Oh, boy, Todd Blanche has got a problem on his hands here," said MacFarlane — specifically, he said, that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a prominent Judiciary Committee Republican with no real loyalty to Trump, "says he's got a slush fund issue with Todd Blanche right now. He doesn't want the slush fund moving forward." With Blanche engaging in a "sleight of hand" with the courts, MacFarlane continued, Tillis is likely to be suspicious."Blanche and Tillis meet early next week, so they're going to be able to hash this out," noted MacFarlane. However, he continued, "Judge Leonie Brinkema ... wanted this thing in writing for a reason. I'm not sure she's going to accept this five-page argument from the Trump administration that it's unnecessary and has a separation-of-powers issue. I don't think the judge agrees."Beyond that, MacFarlane said Blanche's repeated insistence that the slush fund is "not moving forward" is "all kinds of sus.""You could have used different phrases. You could have used different terms," said MacFarlane. "You could have said you're halting it. You could have said, it's never going to happen. You could have said, it's over, not moving forward. It's just the type of passive voice that gives them room for error and room to maneuver, I should say. And I think the court filing does the same today." - YouTube www.youtube.com
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Federal workers for the U.S. Department of the Interior are being directed to wear pins promoting the president’s public-private partnership created to celebrate America’s 250th birthday — instead of the congressionally mandated group that was created to organize the events.According to Mother Jones, National Park Service employees have been ordered to wear the pins, under threat of “professional reprimands.”“When I asked if I would receive any disciplinary action if I chose not to wear the pin, I was told, ‘Yes,’” one person told Mother Jones. “I chose not to continue the conversation after that.” Mother Jones reports that the “establishment of Freedom 250 has allowed Trump to more easily plan events that double as campaign rallies, to privately raise funds from corporations seeking influence with the administration, and to avoid disclosing exactly how much all this is costing US taxpayers.”“Consequently,” says Mother Jones, “NPS employees say that wearing Freedom 250 pins amounts to a partisan declaration, akin to donning a MAGA hat, or worse.”Democrats have called the Trump-created Freedom 250 organization a dark money group, Mother Jones noted, warning that it has no congressional oversight and has been accused of being used to buy access to the president.Trump has announced that Freedom 250’s July 4 celebration on the National Mall would feature a “Trump rally.” Sunday’s White House UFC cage fight, which also celebrated President Trump’s 80th birthday, was organized by the president’s Freedom 250 group.In a February statement, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Democrats “called out Republicans for allowing Trump to hijack America’s 250th Birthday celebration to sell access, hide his donors, and rewrite history — turning the country’s founding anniversary into a party exclusively for billionaires and a platform for Christian Nationalism.”Federal workers for the U.S. Department of the Interior are being directed to wear pins promoting the president’s public-private partnership created to celebrate America’s 250th birthday — instead of the congressionally mandated group that was created to organize the events.According to Mother Jones, National Park Service employees have been ordered to wear the pins, under threat of “professional reprimands.” “When I asked if I would receive any disciplinary action if I chose not to wear the pin, I was told, ‘Yes,’” one person told Mother Jones. “I chose not to continue the conversation after that.” Mother Jones reports that the “establishment of Freedom 250 has allowed Trump to more easily plan events that double as campaign rallies, to privately raise funds from corporations seeking influence with the administration, and to avoid disclosing exactly how much all this is costing US taxpayers.”“Consequently,” says Mother Jones, “NPS employees say that wearing Freedom 250 pins amounts to a partisan declaration, akin to donning a MAGA hat, or worse.” Democrats have called the Trump-created Freedom 250 organization a dark money group, Mother Jones noted, warning that it has no congressional oversight and has been accused of being used to buy access to the president.Trump has announced that Freedom 250’s July 4 celebration on the National Mall would feature a “Trump rally.” Sunday’s White House UFC cage fight, which also celebrated President Trump’s 80th birthday, was organized by the president’s Freedom 250 group.In a February statement, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Democrats “called out Republicans for allowing Trump to hijack America’s 250th Birthday celebration to sell access, hide his donors, and rewrite history — turning the country’s founding anniversary into a party exclusively for billionaires and a platform for Christian Nationalism.” NBC News reports that the bipartisan America250 “is the nonprofit supporting the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which was established 10 years ago through an act of Congress and is led by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and private citizens,” while Freedom 250 “was established by the Trump administration as a public-private partnership by which to fund and plan events celebrating this summer’s historic anniversary.”President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance serve as chair and vice chair for the Freedom 250 group.America250 lists its corporate sponsors while Freedom 250 only indicates certain “strategic partners.”“Knowing the difference between the congressionally-mandated group and Trump/Project 2025’s personal, political grift-machine, the little lapel pin takes on the historical weight of a collaborator’s badge,” one NPS employee told Mother Jones. “Some within my division have taken to calling it the ‘Vichy Pin.’”
