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Trump's AG pick in trouble. Fauci pleads the fifth. Trump sits down with Netanyahu and Zelenskyy.
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Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Photo by Sha Hanting/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images.Todd Blanche’s AG Nomination in Trouble
On June 8, Donald Trump officially nominated his former personal defense lawyer Todd Blanche to be Attorney General, setting up a confirmation fight in the U.S. Senate. During Blanche’s confirmation hearings, the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” Blanche set up for Trump as a purported settlement, in exchange for Trump dropping his lawsuit against the IRS, has become a major obstacle to his confirmation. Two Republican Senators who sit on the Judiciary Committee, Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX), are withholding their support for Blanche until he “pens a written agreement nullifying [the fund] and assuring that it will not be revived in lawsuits.” They are also demanding that “the DOJ modify, in writing, an audit immunity shield that the agency extended to Trump and his associates as part of the settlement agreement.” So far, Blanche has refused to comply.
A planned Thursday morning Judiciary Committee vote on Blanche’s nomination was postponed after Blanche failed to deliver what the Senators asked for. Afterward, Trump took to Truth Social threatening to pull Blanche’s nomination, pledging to get him confirmed once Cornyn and Tillis are no longer in the Senate next year.
According to Fox News, “both Cornyn and Tillis met with Blanche toward the end of the day Thursday to continue hashing out a path forward.” On Friday, Trump lashed out at Cornyn on Truth Social, saying the Senator “never had a problem with the so-called ‘Fund,’ which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate."
Dr. Fauci Pleads the Fifth During Contentious Senate Hearing
On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic, invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during an appearance before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
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