Trump DOJ IMPLODES as GOP Senators TURN ON BLANCHE?!?!

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Time for a deep dive into why Republican senators are rebelling against the president. He's lost the Senate. There's no other way to put it. He put up his lackey and former private criminal defense lawyer, now attorney general Todd Blanch, to go meet for a couple of hours in a golden ornate room off the Senate floor to try to convince Republicans coming in with a onepage PowerPoint from the Department of Justice explaining why he was willing to give money to those that attack the police, which has been now referred to by Republicans in that room as a galactic blunder.

[00:00:39]or as only Mitch McConnell. Yes, the former Senate majority leader. He may not be around much longer, but he did have this quip which I think puts it into uh instant instant relief. So, the nation's top law enforcement official, that's Blanch, is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops utterly stupid, morally wrong, take your pick. That's Mitch McConnell. It went downhill from there. But what I wanted to do is get into the nitty-gritty so that you don't think this is hypothetical.

[00:01:18]There are already claims that have been put through the federal tort claim act by the Proud Boys and their individual leaders and the oathkeepers and their individual leaders and dozens of other people. There's at least 400 of the Gen 6ers who have put in claims. So when you hear about the 1 bill776 million fund, you you don't think I wonder who's going to apply. And I'm going to get down to it here. tell you about the tax break that's baked into the settlement proposal and explain the reason why dozens of Republicans senators are now on record as paying back Donald Trump for attacking senators opposing them in primaries and now is their time as they scadaddle for Memorial Day weekend. I'm Michael Popach. You're on Legal AF and I'm Might as Touch. Let's get down to the reality of the fund. Listen to these numbers.

[00:02:19]There are over 400 Jan 6 writers, fully onethird of them, who have filed claims under the Federal TOR Claims Act, ranging between 1 million and $10 million per per. Many of them are represented by, wait for it, uh Mark McCcluskey.

[00:02:39]He's the lawyer along with his wife who had a AR-15 and he was brandishing it in a menacing fashion as Black Lives Matter protesters peacefully passed through his gated community. He was disparred for it. Got his license back. He was convicted for it and he got that pardoned. But he's back and he's representing these Jan Sixers. So them alone, we're talking about anywhere between$400 million and $4 billion worth of claims. And if you don't think that's bad, Proud Boys, led by Enrique Tario, who publicly declared, "I'm not greedy really because the Proud Boys as an entity to to reanimate themselves and I guess get funding in time for the midterms, as a paramilitary organization dedicated to Donald Trump, they want $18 million." And the individual leaders of Sit down. Sit down. Grab a Grab a cup of bourbon. The individual leaders of the Proud Boys. These are the people that were convicted of sedicious conspiracy and sentenced to up to 12 14 years in prison. They want $100 million. No, they're not greedy. They're just disgusting. It's morally depraved and it's stupid. Again, Mitch McConnell. So Todd Blanch, who's busy trying to tell the public that he is not still the personal lawyer of Donald Trump, stop saying that. I'm the attorney general.

[00:04:09]Who can forget earlier in the week when he did exactly that uh in response to Senator Van Holland getting under his skin. Play the clip. You're his former personal attorney and you know exactly what he wants. In fact, he often posts it right here on social media, his truth social account. He wants to weaponize the department for his own political ends. And right from the start, you and your cohorts have worked to deliver what he wants, doing his political dirty work. This is an outrageous, unprecedented slush fund that you set up. Simple question. Will elig will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund? Well, as it makes plain, anybody just let me know if they're eligible for the fund >> as as as was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were victimization.

[00:05:06]>> Mr. Attorney General, let me ask you this. Are there going to be rules that say that if you've assaulted a Capitol Hill police officer or committed a violent crime, you will not be eligible?

[00:05:17]Why not make that a rule?

[00:05:18]>> I expect that the Well, because I'm not one of the commissioners setting up the rules, I expect four of the five members, aren't you, Mr. Attorney General?

[00:05:25]>> Pardon me?

[00:05:25]>> You're appointing four of the five members.

[00:05:27]>> I am appointing five.

[00:05:28]>> You can simply set up the rules. I would hope you would make a rule that anyone convicted of assaulting a police officer of violent crime is simply not eligible.

[00:05:35]They should not apply. Do you know that it is a criminal offense to lie to Congress?

[00:05:43]>> I am very well aware of that. But he is exactly doing the bidding of the presidency as he tries out for the attorney general position. All he's doing is losing his own votes. He needs these very same people in the Senate to ever confirm him to be the permanent attorney general. And I think he's just lost them as well because they think he's lost his mind and his ethics.

[00:06:09]They're like, first of all, give us the legal precedent for a president not only suing his own internal revenue service, but then forcing the Department of Justice, another agency altogether, to use the judgment fund, which Congress created so that people that were legitimately abused or were or that the Department of Justice or FBI failed would have a fund because they become victimized. For example, the women's gymnastics team and others who were sexually abused by Larry Nasser, the team doctor, because the FBI knew or should have known about Nasser earlier and shut it down, gave $140 million as a fund to those victims. That makes sense.

[00:06:57]But Trump's been abusing that fund ever since. The family of Ashley Babbot, they got $5 million. Ashley Babbot, if she wasn't shot by that one brave uh uh security officer, she would have made her way along with others down the speaker's hallway into the Senate chamber into the chamber where elected officials and their staff were still there. And what do you what do people think she would have done, right? This former military off military uh personnel with a backpack. She was going to hand out daisies. No, but the Trump administration gave her $5 million. The family, $5 million. Michael Flynn, $1.5 million for attorneys fee reimbursement out of this judgment fund that's now been captured and polluted by the Trump administration. Is there any wonder why the Republicans in the Senate are against it? They also don't like the fact that when you look at the fine print of Todd Blanch and his own fingerprints on that next day settlement addendum where he they had a settlement, you know, on the 1776 fund. Oh, the next day, oh, they forgot something, right?

[00:08:08]We're going to absolve the Trump family of all audit and tax liability from the moment this fund uh all the way back.

[00:08:17]So, not only the tax audit that Donald Trump wanted to get out from under in 2010 where he has a hund00 million potential exposure related to tax write offs from 2005 to 2008. No, not just that. Every tax year from 2010 to 2026, he's now completely absolved of being audited. They just gave him a pass to pay zero in taxes for uh 16 years.

[00:08:48]And you wonder why the senators like Collins and Curtis and and Cassidy and Cornin and Tillis and the rest are going, "Are you effing kidding me?" and got out of town. Trump's like, "I want the immigration funding bill on my desk along with the the uh the settlement for my family and the Jan Sixers by uh before Memorial Day." They were like, "Yeah, we're out because we don't want to vote on the immigration bill because we don't want to vote on your on your Jan Six." I mean, you would have thought Donald Trump would think politically he was dead when last week or I'm sorry, earlier this week they blocked the same senators blocked $1 billion going to the ballroom. You don't think that was a signal to Trump not to try it? Don't try this settlement we because that settlement was being discussed have been kicking around for like the last half a year. And so you I think they were gently the Senate and the Republicans were gently suggesting don't bring us another debt on arrival billion dollar slush fund because we're going to have to kill it. Nope. Trump's like let's send Todd Todd Blanch in. He's gonna have to get these votes anyway one day if he ever wants to be uh if he ever wants to be the attorney general. It's like Hunger Games. Trump just sent him in for a hospital pass, you know, over the middle where he gets laid out and ends up in the hospital. But I'm not I have no pity for Blanch. He chose this job. You know, he he he could have resigned rather than go. But when you go in there with a ridiculous one-page PowerPoint, which I have here, we're gonna put it up on the screen.

[00:10:31]This is what he handed out to the Republicans in the Senate. Now, remember, he's only working the Republicans. He's not work he's not working the Democrats for votes. He's only working the party that do Donald Trump is the head of overview of the department's anti-weaponization fund. He thought this grade school arts and craft project was going to get the votes. What is the anti-weaponization fund? Oh, here we go.

[00:10:59]It's like an FAQ on a website. It was created to hear and red address claims of Americans who suffered from lawfare and weaponization.

[00:11:08]The fund results from the settlement of a case involving unlawfully leaking tax returns, unlawfully searching the president's home, and improperly targeting investigating the president.

[00:11:19]That's not what the lawsuit was about.

[00:11:21]The lawsuit that Donald Trump brought was about a guy named Charles Little John who um on his own who didn't work for the IRS but worked for a consultancy leaked Donald Trump's and others tax returns.

[00:11:35]Biden had nothing to do with it. The Department of Justice at the time had nothing to do with it. The FBI had nothing to do with it. And the case didn't have to do with uh Obama or anybody else trying to do surveillance over Donald Trump's involvement with the Russians. So that's just a piece right there. You can just get out of the room at that point. Who will benefit from the fund? This is about seeking accountability for all Americans who are victims of lawfare and weaponization.

[00:12:00]Millions of Americans whose online speech was censored, etc., etc. There is no partisan restriction. Democrats can submit claims, too. What about independents? What about socialists? Uh, and then he has a structure and the funding and the oversight. This is the thing that he thinks is going to get him out and going to get the votes. This is shows you the lack of political instincts of Todd of Todd Blanch. Now, the uh let me show you a clip. You know, Trump had a Tom Tillis problem until this last set of primaries. you know, his Tom Tillis is the outgoing Republican from North Carolina who's decided he's going to he's going to oppose Trump whenever Trump does the wrong thing because he's out of the Senate. He doesn't care about re-election and he's going to be out in 2028. But all Trump did in a shocking display was try to flex power against the Senate to go against Cassidy, Senator Cassidy who lost his primary, go against Cornin in Texas.

[00:13:07]This pissed off the senators.

[00:13:10]You, you know, Congress people get scared when Trump says they're going to he's going to primary them, but senators are like, "F you." And the ones that he that he has left from now until November, seven or eight months, are just going to vote no against Trump time and time again. Here's Tillis on the slush fund.

[00:13:28]>> I suspect some bonehead like Ed Martin or somebody else came up with this payout pot for punks, which is what I'm calling it. Under what circumstances would it ever make sense to provide restitution for people who were either plead guilty or were found guilty in a court of law? You want to talk about maybe providing restitution for people who weren't found guilty? Fine. But if you do this, why not for the poor mostly peaceful pro uh protesters in Kenosha in Portland? I mean, my god, do you see where this would head? These people don't deserve restitution. They many of them deserve to be in prison. Some of them deserve the pardon because they were overprosecuted.

[00:14:05]But this is uh I mean this is just stupid on stilts.

[00:14:09]>> Not support the weaponization fund as it has been described.

[00:14:16]>> But I just don't know how this puppy dog will work.

[00:14:19]>> This is bad policy. It's bad timing and it's bad politics.

[00:14:23]>> Uh this is dead. This because it has to be funded. You know, the Department of Justice attorney general cannot order the Internal Revenue Service to create a fund without Congress is involvement.

[00:14:39]And that's what we're watching is Congress's desire not to be involved in this in this. Now, I'm not I'm a little bit joyful coming into Memorial Day weekend. I'm not joyful because I'm I'm here to credit all the Republicans who finally found the courage and the balls and the gravitas to oppose the president. A lot of it's being done for their own political purposes, but at least they're doing the right thing.

[00:15:01]Finally, kill the bill. And Trump should have known because he tried to slip a very similar provision uh at least in terms of its uh substance into the big beautiful bill. remember when he tried to put in a hund hundreds of millions of dollars, whatever it was, uh re u a fund to pay senators and congress people because they had to be involved with Jan 6 prosecutions and investigations of Donald Trump's criminal activity. Remember that? And Lindsey Graham was like, "Yeah, I'm going to go I'm going to go collect money on that. I had to pay attorneys fees related to it." And that died. You think Trump would would have the the the political sackle? That's a it's a Yiddish Jewish word, legal word for smarts, street smarts to know if you're going to lose that, you're going to lose the ballroom, you're going to um lose uh you're going to oppose all these senators that you don't send in Todd Blanch fresh off of his performance where he got abused with to within an inch of his life in the in the Senate Appropriations Committee. You don't send him in and hope you're going to get out from under the uh uh the scorn of of ridicule related to this fund. I don't know if this fund would have survived if Trump and his family weren't absolved of 16 years of tax liability and $und00 million tax audit current that was currently over his head. But uh it didn't help. And that particular statute, which I'll follow more in future follow-ups here on Midas Dutch and Legal AF, is a criminal violation by the attorney general, which seems that nobody wants to be involved with. Let me um let me end this hot take the way I started it because it's just so well put. Mitch McConnell. So, the nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops utterly stupid, morally wrong. Take your pick. I'm Michael Popock. Hit the subscribe button here on Legal A YouTube channel. Until my next report, this is Michael. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our Substack at midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipowski, ad free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at midasplus.com.