Republicans pull stunt in DARK OF NIGHT

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (0:01)
Republicans pull a stunt in the dark of night, and I've got two interviews, ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, and the Bulwark, Sam Stein. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.
Of course, Republicans opted to pull one of the most shameful acts of this Congress in the dead of night. On Saturday, at four o'clock in the morning, Todd Blanche was confirmed as Permanent Attorney General. Importantly, that vote was 50 to 49, only Mitch McConnell didn't vote because he's rock climbing or windsurfing somewhere, according to the latest statement from his office insisting that he's not dead.
You don't confirm someone at four o'clock in the morning if this is something that you are in any way proud of doing. And yet, doesn't surprise me at all that these are the depths that Republicans needed to stoop to to get this guy over the finish line. This is a man who, as Deputy AG, personally flew to Tallahassee, spent nine hours over two days privately interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell, who is herself a convicted child sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein's closest accomplice. And what came out of those nine hours was a quote about how Ghislaine Maxwell never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way, end quote. And then, once Maxwell offered up what I'm sure the White House views as exculpatory evidence, she was moved to a low-security prison in Texas. And there was never a single excuse given why.
This is also the guy at the center of the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. This is a fund created as part of the illegal settlement that Trump struck with himself over his own leaked tax returns, a fund that would have compensated him, his family, meaning his sons, and his businesses for supposedly being targeted by federal tax enforcement. Now, Cornyn and Tillis held up this nomination for weeks demanding written proof that the fund was dead, and what did they get? They got a rescission of the specific order that stood that fund up, but not the underlying settlement agreement itself, which remains fully legally intact, sitting there and waiting for a future version of the exact same fund to be created all over again, but whenever it's more politically convenient. Blanche himself already admitted under oath that Trump's lawyers could still try to enforce that settlement, so Republicans confirmed a guy who oversaw a scheme to funnel potentially billions of taxpayer dollars into Trump's own pocket, accepted a half measure that leaves the door wide open for them to do it again, and called that accountability.
And look, none of this is unexpected as far as Trump and Blanche are concerned. We know full well how corrupt these people are. But just as bad are the 50 Republican senators who voted to confirm them, especially those who knew better. As I mentioned, Gordon and Tillis pretended that their red line was the slush fund, and when Blanche offered up a rescission of that fund, but kept in place the settlement agreement that will let him create a brand new fund tomorrow if he wants, they allowed themselves to be rolled. They knew better, but God forbid they show a spine. Or how about Bill Cassidy, the physician who voted to confirm RFK Jr., who is an anti-science quack, now overseeing a record number of measles cases and a cyclospora outbreak? Apparently that wasn't enough for Cassidy to learn that him trying to curry favor with the lunatics in his party has consequences for hundreds of millions of people.
Because here he is doing it again, all over again, and in service of a guy who literally ended his career. There is no floor to how much these people will debase themselves for Trump.
And then of course, there's Susan Collins, who came out and heroically announced that she would be voting against Todd Blanche. Only she did it because she knew she had cover. She knew that there would be just enough Republican votes to get him through. And she was right, 51 to 49 Who could have possibly seen that coming? Meaning this wasn't some courageous stand by Susan Collins. It was a manufactured decision between her and her party to make her seem courageous, when in reality, it was the polar opposite. This is a senator facing a brutal re-election fight in a state that is trending against her party, casting a vote that cost her absolutely nothing because the outcome is already locked in before she opened her mouth. This is the purest, most distilled form of consequence-free performance art you could possibly conjure up. This is Susan Collins' cosplaying as some maverick, while in reality serving as the most shameless Magus sycophant that you could find. Abject contempt for her own voters, who she clearly thinks are too stupid to be able to tell the difference.