However, Todd Blanche said the IRS will still be prohibited from auditing Donald Trump, his family and related entities‘Outright theft’: legal experts decry $1.8bn Trump anti-weaponization fundThe federal government is abandoning an effort to create a $1.8bn secretive fund to compensate Donald Trump’s allies, but is maintaining an agreement that prohibits the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from auditing Trump, his family and related entities, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said on Tuesday.“We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said during a House appropriations committee hearing on Tuesday. “The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund.” Continue reading...
President Donald Trump‘s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said former Attorney General Merrick Garland failed to be transparent about his role in major investigations targeting Trump, pointing to several pieces of evidence showing Garland personally approved key steps in those investigations. Speaking Tuesday on Hang Out with Sean Hannity from Fox News, Blanche said he […]
Second Lady Usha Vance defended Supreme Court Justices during an ABC interview Monday night.The Daily Beast reports Vance urged viewers to treat the Justices with respect, amid President Donald Trump's continued attacks on the high court. Vance, who previously clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, said justices face challenging public roles and deserve humanity. "I think that there has been a lot of personalization of feelings towards judges and the courts across the country that probably didn’t exist, you know, 150 years ago when they were less in the public eye," Vance said.Without naming Trump, she added, "So I’m hopeful that people will continue to treat them with a sense of humanity and, you know, without the kind of anger that’s led to some attacks on judges." Chief Justice Roberts has expressed concerns about Trump's personal attacks, particularly following the February ruling striking down Trump's tariff policy. Trump called those justices "disloyal," "unpatriotic," and "fools."The President has specifically targeted Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett for having ruled against his wishes on major decisions.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
President Donald Trump's executive order seizing federal control of mail-in voting is in peril after a federal judge in Massachusetts gave it a cold reception in court this week.According to Bloomberg Law, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani "pressed the Justice Department on the president’s order for the Department of Homeland Security to draw up a list of confirmed citizens, which states could use in creating a list of eligible mail-in voters to provide to the US Postal Service," sounding skeptical that this was a valid exercise."You'll have a small list," said Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.Under Trump's executive order, states would have to provide these lists within 30 days of an election, and the Postal Service would directly block sending ballots to anyone not on these lists — a requirement and timeline which could trigger logistical chaos if allowed to go into effect immediately.This comes just a week after U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of Trump, declined to block the order, reasoning that it was only initiating a rulemaking process and hadn't yet caused anything illegal to happen.It also comes as the Supreme Court considers a case that could make it vastly more difficult for mail ballots to be counted in some states.
A Democratic lawmaker blasted Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday and called out the immunity order issued by the Justice Department that granted President Donald Trump, his family and associates immunity from any future IRS investigations.Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) pressed Blanche — Trump's former personal lawyer — to answer questions about the decision during the House Appropriations Committee hearing on the Justice Department. Blanche admitted during the Capitol Hill hearing that the Justice Department would not move forward with its "anti-weaponization fund" following outcry from both lawmakers and the public.And in DeLauro's line of questioning, she expressed frustration towards Blanche, shaking her head and scoffing at his responses after he said the order was "not blanket immunity." Then she read the order directly to him."United States releases, waives, acquits and forever discharges each of the plaintiffs from and is hereby forever barred and precluded from prosecuting or pursuing any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of actions, appeals, requests for any reliefs," DeLauro read. "I mean, this is an order from you, but you're not prepared," she said. "You are prepared to say that the president and his family will be, are barred, are immune. That's a yes.""No, it was not a yes. I had not answered the question. I can't answer if you want me to," Blanche said. Blanche argued that the Justice Department and Trump administration would not move forward with the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund." But DeLauro wanted answers — and not just about the fund."OK. But you are moving forward with this second order," DeLauro pushed back."It's not moving forward. There's a settlement," Blanche said. "There's a settlement that the IRS entered into with President Trump and others, his family and his companies as part of that settlement. As is customary in IRS settlements. There's a separate AG order," Blanche said.DeLauro was stunned by Blanche's comments and made it known."Friends, listen to what is being said here today here," she said. "This is really pretty extraordinary, that we are going to forever barred and precluded from examining or prosecuting the president, his sons and the Trump organization's current tax filings. Simply put, you just gave the president's family a tax immunity to the tune of about $100 million." "Not true," Blanche said. "Well, yes, you have, my friend," DeLauro said.She called out Blanche's conflict of interest."The Save America PAC paid you nearly $10 million in 2024 to serve as President Trump's personal defense attorney! My God, do you not find there's any conflict of interest in what you are doing here as the acting attorney general of the US?" DeLauro asked.
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) clashed with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Tuesday during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing over what Van Hollen described as a "pattern" of mistruths from DHS. Van Hollen challenged Mullin about previous statements former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem made about cases involving Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, an immigrant in Maryland who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador last year, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was shot and killed by immigration agents during a confrontation with Border Patrol agents amid protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this year. Van Hollen claimed there was a "pattern" of untruths offered by the previous DHS administration. Things got heated when Mullin attempted to refute Van Hollen's claim. "I do want to say something to you," Mullin said to Van Hollen as his time for questions expired. "We arrest about 1,900 people a day ..."Van Hollen interrupted Mullin and asked the committee chair, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), if she would allow more time for questions so the two could finish their conversation. Mullin continued uninterrupted."I was answering what you said was a pattern!" Mullin said. "You made an accusation that there was a pattern ...""Mr. Secretary, I went on! There was a pattern," Van Hollen shot back. Mullin and Van Hollen then got into a heated back-and-forth about the definition of a pattern."Let's get out the dictionary!" Van Hollen said amid the crosstalk.
Former GOP operative Tim Miller took a moment on MS NOW's "Deadline: White House" to lay into President Donald Trump's move to replace outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with his controversial housing finance administrator Bill Pulte — a man often called Trump's "attack dog," and, Miller pointed out, has absolutely no qualifications to coordinate national intelligence."I'm going to start with you because there's nothing for an intelligence person to say about this person," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "This is a political hack ... what happens next?"Miller agreed, saying that he is likely the most unqualified Cabinet-level nominee in the history of the United States, even including Pete Hegseth, who at least served in the military before being tapped for Secretary of Defense. "Bill Pulte has no experience by this at all. Calling him a political hack is even, you know, kind of too kind to him.""It's mean to us political hacks!" chimed in Wallace, to general laughter around the panel.Worse, Miller continued, "he was a corrupt grifter" whose main experience before Trump appointed him to head up housing finance was pushing "meme stocks" and "crypto rug pulls."Then, he said, at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, "The main thing he did was use his access to mortgage documents. He also made himself the head of Freddie and Fannie to go after Trump's political foes. I mean, that's like the extent of his political work actually, going after political foes with dubious attacks based on the way that they filed their mortgage documents." That, he said, is the extent of his experience in government operations.And that's probably by design, Miller added."I don't think that he's in this job to actually do the job of the Director of National Intelligence," said Miller, speculating that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other high-ranking officials will do that job for him. Rather, "I think he's in there to do the dirty work, to do the sole job of now using his expanded access to the information about Americans to try to go after Donald Trump's political foes. I think that will be basically his only duty there." - YouTube www.youtube.com
President: 'I don't know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out'