Trump's Personal Lawyer One Step Closer to Running the DOJ

What It Took to Get Here

Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina had been the holdouts. According to The Guardian, both senators refused to back Blanche without written assurances that the Justice Department would kill a proposed fund meant to compensate people who claimed they were unfairly prosecuted by the DOJ.

The fund became a flashpoint because, as critics quickly pointed out, it could potentially include January 6th rioters, people who violently attacked police officers and tried to stop the certification of an election. Bipartisan outrage followed. And yet Trump kept defending the idea publicly, which is why Cornyn and Tillis weren't satisfied with verbal promises alone.

Blanche issued a written order late Sunday committing to scrap the fund. That was apparently enough. 'We want to express our gratitude to Mr Blanche and his staff for working with us on this,' Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement, per The Guardian. Two senators who had leverage, used it to extract a single concession, and then handed it back.

The Part Worth Sitting With

Let's just be clear about what is happening here. The person who will soon oversee every federal prosecutor in the United States, who will control what the FBI investigates, who will decide which cases the DOJ pursues and which it quietly shelves, spent the last several years as Donald Trump's personal criminal defense attorney.

Blanche represented Trump in the New York hush money case. He was at Trump's side during the federal documents trial. He argued, with a straight face, that his client was being persecuted by a corrupt justice system. Now that same client is the president, and now that same lawyer is about to run the justice system he called corrupt. This is not a subtle conflict of interest. This is a conflict of interest wearing a neon sign.

And to be fair, Senate Republicans did push back. Cornyn and Tillis held out for weeks. They got a written order. Then they folded.

Meanwhile, the Rest of Monday Happened

In an 89-4 vote, the Senate agreed to take up a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through December 11th, according to The Guardian. That's the good news. The bad news is that we are, again, watching the United States government manage its finances like someone who lost their credit card and is surviving on cash from an old coat pocket.

Also Monday: a coalition of 25 states filed suit against the Trump administration over new tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, The Guardian reports. The states are asking the US Court of International Trade to halt the tariffs, declare them unlawful, and refund duties already collected. The legal argument is that these tariffs are a workaround for import taxes the Supreme Court already struck down in February. So the administration got told no by the Supreme Court and responded by doing it again with different paperwork.

And then there was Trump publicly attacking US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a woman he appointed, for having 'folded like an umbrella' after she dropped vandalism charges against a former Olympian. The irony of Donald Trump accusing anyone of folding, on the same day his two holdout senators folded for a written note, appears to have been lost on everyone involved.

The Domestic Abuse Allegations Trump Won't Touch

Representative Max Miller is facing allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. Trump, asked about it Monday, declined to call for Miller's resignation. He said he has always known Miller as 'a good person' and called the situation 'a very sad thing,' according to The Guardian.

That's it. That's the whole response. A member of Congress faces domestic abuse allegations and the president of the United States says it's sad and moves on. No call for an investigation. No expression of concern for the alleged victim. Just a character reference for the accused and a pivot.