Today’s hearing was supposed to be a moment to put Todd Blanche on the defensive, and for much of it, Democrats simply failed to do that. Blanche was sitting there as the acting attorney general tied to Trump’s orbit, the Epstein file cover-up, and the wildly corrupt settlement fund, yet too many senators treated the exchange like a routine oversight hearing instead of a confrontation with a political loyalist helping run interference for the president. The result was maddening: too much polite procedure, too much sidestepping, and not nearly enough force.
What made the hearing especially frustrating was how obvious the central issues were. Blanche is not just another nominee or agency head. He is part of a system that, is shielding Trump, protecting powerful abusers, and helping turn the Justice Department into a tool of revenge and patronage. That is why the weak, meandering questions about staffing, grant programs, and technical budget matters felt so disconnected from the real crisis. They weren’t wrong topics in the abstract, but they were the wrong priorities for this moment.
I was especially critical of senators like Coons, Shaheen, and others who spent their time on peripheral issues while Blanche was ducking the core corruption questions. You when senators touched the right subject, many failed to stay on it long enough to matter. Instead of boxing Blanche in, they let him talk, deflect, and normalize what should have been treated as outrageous.
A few senators did break through. Give credit to Van Hollen for coming out strong right away, and later to Murray, who finally forced Blanche to answer directly on the Epstein-related questions and the survivor handling. Merkley eventually got to something meaningful, even if too much time had been wasted before that point. In my view, those were the moments that actually mattered, because they went straight at the corruption, the cover-up, and the cruelty that defined Blanche’s testimony.
