Blanche and the DOJ, Michigan Primaries, Spokane Wildfires

**Ney Martinez** (0:02)
The Senate Judiciary Committee votes today on Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General.

**Steve Inskeep** (0:06)
Blanche won the support of Republican holdouts after meeting their demands.

**Ney Martinez** (0:09)
What else concerns lawmakers about the record of the president's former personal lawyer? Ney Martinez, that is Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News.

**Steve Inskeep** (0:22)
Five states hold primaries today. In Michigan, voters have some issues.

**Alyssa Dybalt** (0:26)
People are pissed.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:27)
Gas is expensive.

**Alyssa Dybalt** (0:28)
Groceries are expensive. Healthcare is insane.

**Steve Inskeep** (0:31)
Democrats decide between two Senate candidates. How different are their choices?

**Ney Martinez** (0:36)
A man is arrested on arson charges in connection to one of the wildfires ripping through Spokane, Washington. More than 60,000 people have evacuated.

**Charlie Patrick** (0:44)
I have a lot of memories, pictures and stuff of my family. I can't get back.

**Ney Martinez** (0:50)
Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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**Ney Martinez** (2:01)
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote today on Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General.

**Steve Inskeep** (2:06)
Two Republican senators dropped their objections after President Trump's nominee put to statements in writing. Todd Blanche addressed demands from the senators relating to a fund that could be paid to the president's political supporters and also to a tax immunity deal.

**Ney Martinez** (2:21)
MPR Justice Correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us now with more. So Ryan, for much of the past week, it wasn't really clear whether Blanche's nomination would get through or actually survive. So now the Senate Judiciary Committee is about to vote on it. What changed?

**Ryan Lucas** (2:34)
Right. Well, what happened is Blanche and the Justice Department managed to provide the sort of written guarantees that addressed the demands of Senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis. Now Cornyn and Tillis are both Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Their support is critical for Blanche's nomination to advance. And they wanted written confirmation that a controversial $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is dead and also written limits to a tax immunity deal for Trump, his family. And businesses, late Sunday Blanche released two documents that purport to address those. One says it formally rescinds the order that created the anti-weaponization fund, meaning the fund is dead. The other purports to clarify the scope of the tax immunity deal, including that it only applies retroactively and only to Trump, two of his sons and the Trump organization. That said, legal experts say neither document that Blanche released is actually legally binding and they don't provide the sort of ironclad guarantees that they purport to.
But they are enough for Cornyn and Tillis, who yesterday thanked Blanche for the assurances and said they would now support his nomination.

**Ney Martinez** (3:41)
Yeah, now, typically Republicans rubber stamp the president's nominees, but why was this issue one that really got these two senators to hold up Blanche's nomination?

**Ryan Lucas** (3:50)
Look, this anti-weaponization fund was deeply unpopular with Republican senators from the very beginning. Remember, this would be $1.8 billion of taxpayer money that the DOJ said would be doled out to, in essence, anyone. That includes rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and beat up cops. The tax immunity deal was also problematic for some Republicans. As Corden himself put it last week, that deal would provide Trump with benefits that no other American taxpayer could get. To be clear, those benefits still very much remain in place.
It's also worth pointing out that there is a long list of other issues at the Justice Department that legal experts, department veterans think should make Congress question Blanche's leadership as well as his fitness to be attorney general.

**Ney Martinez** (4:34)
Okay, such as?

**Ryan Lucas** (4:36)
Well, at some point to his handling of the Epstein files, you can also look at the department's politicization under Blanche or the targeting of Trump's perceived enemies. But more broadly, there's also the unraveling of what's known as the presumption of regularity, this idea that courts assume that DOJ officials are acting properly, acting in good faith, they're making accurate factual representations in court.