Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sharply criticized Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday morning as the panel prepared to vote on whether to advance Blanche's nomination to serve permanently in the role.

Blanche, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who later served as Donald Trump's personal defense attorney in the Manhattan hush money criminal case, was tapped by Trump to lead the Justice Department. His permanent nomination requires approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee before proceeding to a full Senate vote.

Durbin's frustration centered on testimony Blanche previously gave before the committee, in which he declined to acknowledge what Durbin characterized as a self-evident connection behind the Trump administration's $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund."

The fund, described by critics as a taxpayer-funded mechanism to provide payouts to individuals convicted or charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, drew scrutiny from committee Democrats over its unusually specific price tag. The "weaponization" label aligns with a broader Republican effort to reframe investigations into Trump and January 6 defendants as politically motivated prosecutions.

At a prior hearing, Blanche refused to concede that the figure of $1.776 billion was chosen to evoke the year 1776 — a number repeatedly invoked by some January 6 rioters who sought to draw parallels between themselves and the American revolutionaries of the nation's founding era.

The Senate Judiciary Committee convened Tuesday to vote on advancing Blanche's nomination. Durbin used the occasion to revisit what he viewed as Blanche's evasive responses.

"When asked how the [Justice Department] justified the slush fund's outrageous $1.776 billion price tag, Mr. Blanche refused to answer," Durbin said.

"He shows contempt for this committee and for our history when refusing to admit that the sum was chosen to signal support for the Jan. 6 rioters when they attacked and invaded the Capitol," Durbin continued. "Those rioters shamelessly invoked 1776 to compare themselves to American revolutionaries... give me a break!"

The committee vote comes amid broader partisan tensions over the direction of the Justice Department under Trump, with Republicans pushing to reshape an agency they have accused of political bias and Democrats warning that key institutional norms are being dismantled.

Source: Raw Story