DENY Todd Blanche's confirmation as Attorney General of the United States

I am writing as a constituent to state, in the plainest terms possible, that you must vote NO on the confirmation of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General of the United States. This is not a request. This is a demand from someone who expects the people I help elect to actually protect the rule of law, not rubber-stamp a nominee whose own record disqualifies him. I want to be specific about why, because vague objections are easy to ignore and specific ones are not. First, Mr. Blanche has already broken the law he is being asked to enforce. As Acting Attorney General, he himself conceded to a federal court that the Department of Justice was in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law this Congress passed specifically to force disclosure of files the public has a right to see. A federal judge had to order the release of information his department tried to keep hidden, including material tied to eight emails that could show who knew about and participated in Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. A nominee for the nation's top law enforcement post should not be someone a court has already found broke the law meant to hold his own department accountable. Second, Mr. Blanche cannot or will not disavow a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" settlement fund that multiple members of your own committee, including Senator Cornyn, have identified as a mechanism to compensate the president's political allies with taxpayer money. When directly pressed on whether this fund was dead, Mr. Blanche's own answers confirmed it is not, and that it could still be enforced as a matter of contract. An Attorney General who will not rule out using the Department of Justice's resources to pay off the president's allies is not independent. He is compromised before he is even confirmed. Third, I would note that the hesitation on this nomination is not coming only from Democrats. Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both Republicans, have publicly stated they remain undecided after Mr. Blanche's July 15 hearing exposed these same concerns. When members of the nominee's own party cannot commit to supporting him, that is not partisan noise. That is a signal worth taking seriously. The Attorney General of the United States is supposed to answer to the Constitution and the law, not to the man who appointed him. Mr. Blanche's record over the past eighteen months, an admitted statutory violation on Epstein disclosure and an unresolved slush fund benefiting the president's allies, shows a pattern of putting the president's interests ahead of the law he would be sworn to uphold. That is disqualifying. I am asking you directly: vote NO on this confirmation. Do not send Todd Blanche to lead the Department of Justice. My vote, and the votes of everyone I will be sharing this letter with, will reflect how you answer this demand.