If they don't give me Todd Blanche as AG, I will throw a shit fit. Watch me. Or just cave into the blackmail of it all.
This is a message to the Senate of the United States. A Constitutional branch of the preeminent trioka, Congress, Courts, Executive. The gall and stupidity are staggering.
Here's the AP report, carried in a local daily, PioneerPress:
Trump’s threat to push ahead on settlement fund injects new uncertainty into attorney general talks
By ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to push forward with a fund to compensate his allies if two Republican holdouts will not support his nominee for attorney general, injecting fresh uncertainty into a Senate confirmation vote planned for next week and underscoring once more his interest in securing payouts for supporters who feel unjustly persecuted.
Trump asserted in his Truth Social post that he would keep acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in his current role and press ahead on the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” if Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina refuse to back the former federal prosecutor who was key member of Trump’s defense team when the Republican battled four indictments.
The administration needs their votes but both lawmakers have protested Blanche’s selection because of a lawsuit settlement that created a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system and provided Trump and family members with immunity from tax audits.
In a sign of apparent progress Friday, Trump pronounced the fund “dead.” As negotiations continued into the night, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, rescheduled a committee vote for Blanche that had been postponed earlier in the week.
A spokesperson for the committee said Grassley, R-Iowa, would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess and that putting the Tuesday vote on the calendar “gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee.”
But by Saturday morning, those plans were in jeopardy with a new announcement from Trump that appeared to put the fund back on the table — and dinged the two senators who are leaving Capitol Hill when their terms end in January.
“If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard” to restore the fund. The president insisted, as he previously has, that the fund “takes care of those who have been so badly treated” during the administrations of Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Tillis, who is retiring, took note of the president’s turnabout by saying in a post on X that despite Trump’s comments Friday, he “clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans in the Senate would be against.”
He added: “It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal. Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday.”
[...]
What brand of stupid is this? How could anyone have voted for that gentleman?
How? How,how,how,HOW!!!
Hopefully, those who did are capable of feeling buyer's remorse.
Blanche is hoist in Trump's petard. Bless the two of them.
That entire bogus collusive litigation exercise, with Blanche in the middle, stinks.
UPDATE: This is an extrajudicial contempt of the District Court. The judge handling the case should enter a finding of contempt; $500,000 fine per day until the contempt is cleared. Not a public expense. From Trump's personal wealth. He can pay it in crypto for all the fuck I care. But just hang the contempt onto his shoulders. He caused counsel to misrepresent the truth, in court, about that dumb-fuck slush fund attempted theft.