Sen. Whitehouse Slams Republicans for Concealing MAGA U.S. Attorney's Alarming Misconduct

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Thanks very much. Um, in the context of what has recently uh happened u with the Treasury and the Department of Justice and the setting up of the 1.8 billion dollar cop beaters slush fund the very week after police week here in Washington. I thought that uh Mr. Schwarz's comments about the merit of standing indicated quite clearly why that self-deing cup beaters slush fund is so deeply deeply problematic without even going to the Trump family tax amnesty that uh it provided with literally one lawyer's signature on the document.

[00:00:46]Usually, if there's a contested matter, there are two parties. In this case, one lawyer signed it. And we don't know whether he signed it as acting attorney general or as Trump's personal lawyer, but we do know that it created a 1 billion cop beater slush fund. And we do know that it gave the Trump family and associated businesses uh amnesty from any tax mischief or fraud that they may have committed. And it's really hard to see how there was any real case or controversy in that little scheme. But um I also want to note that Mr. Schwarz is here without blue slips from the senators from the second circuit state. And just to remind everybody, I warned when we got rid of the circuit court blue slip that this was going to be unpleasant. And I've had colleagues on the other side express their dissatisfaction when they were ignored for blue slips. So here we are again. I don't want to hear a lot of complaining about blue slips in the future after we go through these exercises and ignore senator's rights to have a blue slip. But I want to talk about something different that just happened fairly recently. Um, in Wyoming, a US attorney was sanctioned by the federal court. Nine criminal indictments were thrown out as a result of improper conversations with grand jurors by the US attorney.

[00:02:19]He called the defendants murderers even though there were not homicide charges in the proposed indictment. He called them bad guys, not run-of-the-mill criminals.

[00:02:35]He handed out his business cards, to the grand jurors and invited them to get in touch with him privately.

[00:02:44]A 1L could do issue spotting in that fact pattern and see massive, massive error and misconduct.

[00:02:56]It was challenged by the lawyers for the defendants who said this is not an isolated lapse. It has metastasized into systemic institutional failure in the taint is widespread and continuous. And guess what? The court agreed.

[00:03:12]The court said that the cumul cumulative effect of many known instances of misconduct implying that there may be further unknown instances of misconduct.

[00:03:25]justified dismissing the complaints. The court found that none of the US attorney's excuses carry water when viewed, I'm quoting here, when viewed against the volume and the flagrancy of the misconduct." End quote. And then concluded that the this US attorney had abused his special position of trust.

[00:03:48]Here's what's interesting about that order and that US attorney. That order was filed on May 15th of this year.

[00:03:57]Three days later on May 18th, that US attorney who'd been voted on in this committee was slipped into the big onblock list for confirmation without anyone in the Senate being told about that May 15th order regarding his professional misconduct.

[00:04:18]And I got to say, I don't think that's the way this committee should operate.

[00:04:24]I think if there's an order from the federal court challenging the integrity and the competence of a United States attorney who is pending before the United States Senate and we're not informed about that order for three days and we don't even get an individual vote on that nominee.

[00:04:43]Instead, he's buried into the unblock group, which I think was 49 different confirmations that day.

[00:04:54]That's not what the Senate is supposed to be.

[00:04:58]This guy should not be a US attorney, and his confirmation should certainly not have been slipped in without disclosure of this order into an unblocked confirmation vote. I think the Senate was misled by that.