LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Adam Schiff is a Democratic senator from California who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Last year, after President Trump nominated Blanche to be his deputy attorney general, Schiff asked him about his relationship with President Trump and the extent to which it posed a conflict of interest.
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ADAM SCHIFF: Are you still Donald Trump's lawyer?
TODD BLANCHE: I mean, yes. My attorney-client relationship with President Trump remains, yes. The cases I was representing him on, to the extent that there's anything going on, like the appeal in Manhattan, I'm not part of that.
SCHIFF: But you're still representing him as you sit here today?
BLANCHE: Well, I mean, representing him, there's no active matters, so...
SCHIFF: Correct. But you're still his lawyer.
BLANCHE: I have an attorney-client relationship with President Trump.
FADEL: Senator Schiff spoke with us before he questioned Todd Blanche during his confirmation hearing this morning. And I started by asking him if his main objection to confirming Todd Blanche is still that he served as President Trump's personal attorney.
SCHIFF: It's not that he was the personal lawyer; it's that he still remains the president's personal lawyer. And this really is, I think, at the heart of all of our concern about him. That is, he's never been able to shed the role of Donald Trump defender, Donald Trump criminal defense lawyer. He's approached every issue that's come before him through that lens of protecting his client. His client should be the American people, but he views his client as Donald Trump.
So in the Epstein files, he has withheld files. He's been found to have violated - the Justice Department has been found to violate court orders in terms of what they need to disclose. You had that trip to prison to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell as a way of trying to make sure there was nothing incriminating of Donald Trump, and then she gets transferred to a lower-security prison. You have the slush fund set up on behalf of Donald Trump. You have that tax settlement for Donald Trump. All of these actions by Blanche for the president - the person, the president - and not for the country.
FADEL: Now, the former Attorney General Pam Bondi was also a defense lawyer for Donald Trump. Is Blanche different?
SCHIFF: Well, he may be different in that he's being more aggressive and successful in going to bat for the president personally than Bondi was. This slush fund, for example, has his fingerprints all over it. The IRS settlement he himself signed. And, you know, as opposed to Bondi, Blanche was a highly respected lawyer in the Southern District of New York, so he knows what he's doing. And he's chosen, essentially, to do the president's bidding.
And the way that he has allowed the weaponization of the Justice Department, after being a prosecutor in that department, is so appalling, so egregious, that he would go before the public from the podium at DOJ and say that the president not only has a right to go after his political enemies and use the department to do so, but he has a duty to do so. No self-respecting prosecutor would ever say such a thing, but it shows the extent to which Blanche is willing to go to bat for Donald Trump.
FADEL: What will you be asking Blanche today? What answers are you looking for?
SCHIFF: Well, I'll be particularly interested in how he has weaponized the Justice Department. The Comey seashells case is a patently frivolous case. I can't imagine any prosecutor throughout the country bringing such a weak case. The fact that they tried to indict several of my colleagues over a video that they made because they didn't like the message of the video, which was a statement of the law and constitution - that if you're in the military, you don't have to follow an unconstitutional order. Indeed, you have a duty not to. These cases are such an abuse, and, of course, the slush fund for people who beat cops and gouge them and bear-sprayed them the way they have...
FADEL: And you're referring to the fund that came with the settlement over the IRS that's now defunct?
SCHIFF: Exactly. And is it really defunct, though? That's another question because they may use a different mechanism, such as the Federal Tort Claims Act, to compensate these insurrectionists anyway. So we have to be sure that when he says the slush fund won't be used, that he's not going to use a different slush fund toward the president's attackers on that day.
FADEL: Now, you and your Democratic colleagues are united in your opposition to Blanche's confirmation. Do you expect any Republicans to join you?
SCHIFF: I don't know. I - you know, I think on the committee - and it would just take one of them - Senators Tillis and Cornyn have expressed deep concerns about the slush fund. Senator Tillis, for example, about any defense of the January 6 attackers. And there is video of Todd Blanche bragging at CPAC - this conservative convention - about how, within hours, they pardoned and commuted the sentences of all these attackers on January 6. He's proud of that, how they dismissed cases against the leaders of the Proud Boys and these other white nationalist groups. So, hard to square that with any concern over not trying to reinvent history on January 6.
FADEL: Now, you mentioned Senator Cornyn, Senator Tillis, both men whose time in the Senate is coming to a close. Do you think that'll impact how they decide to vote?
SCHIFF: Well, in theory, it should give them a greater level of independence that they're not going before voters. They don't have to worry about the president primary challenging them - that already happened with Senator Cornyn. So you would hope that it gives them a greater measure of independence. It does raise the question about why is it only senators who don't have to worry about a primary from Donald Trump and the MAGA people behind him? Why is it only these senators who are willing to speak out? Shouldn't the other senators also be willing to speak out if there are ethical problems, which there are in great abundance with a nominee like Blanche?
FADEL: Have you had conversations with your Republican colleagues about these concerns, and what are they saying to you?
SCHIFF: Certainly, I've had conversations with them privately, and I think they recognize the concerns. I've talked with them about the settlement, the slush fund, the $1.776 billion. In fact, there was a - I think, a powerful moment on the Senate floor during one of our all-night vote-a-ramas where I posed the question to my Senate colleagues, do any of you think that this slush fund is a good idea? And I waited for an answer, and there aren't many pregnant pauses on the Senate floor. People generally jump into the lurch, but no one wanted to speak in defense of this thing.
So if they're not willing to defend it, then why are they willing to defend the guy who is the architect of it?
FADEL: After his sudden death this past weekend, could Lindsey Graham's absence from the committee affect proceedings?
SCHIFF: I don't think it will affect them in terms of the vote count. It might affect them in the sense of we don't know what Lindsey would have had to say. I imagine he would have been strongly in support of Blanche. He's been a staunch defender of the president and the president's allies.
FADEL: Adam Schiff is a Democratic senator from California who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Thank you for your time.
SCHIFF: Thank you.
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