There’s a lot to unpack from Todd Blanche’s Senate testimony — up to and including his unwillingness to address the fact that child molesters are dangling the promise of new January 6 slush fund cash to silence victims — but one heated exchange with Senator Van Hollen more or less sums up the general air of buffoonery that Blanche brings to the Department of Justice:
To be fair, Lionel Putz here correctly said “Acting Attorney General,” making clear that his current title is a lot more ephemeral than his last one.
This is what we call the Streisand Effect. In internet parlance, the Streisand Effect refers to, as Urban Dictionary defines it, “A social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information.” Senator Van Hollen flagged the fact that Blanche has a longstanding attorney-client relationship with Donald Trump as a serious conflict of interest now that Trump represents the IRS — claiming to be adverse to Trump personally, unitary executive theory be damned — in a settlement that gives Blanche unchecked authority to distribute almost $2 billion in taxpayer dollars to January 6 rioters. We have a lot of rules set up to avoid lawyers representing clients against former clients. Blanche disregards these because this case — from the start — was just a shifting blob faking an adversarial posture when convenient and dropping it just as quickly when it wasn’t.
The arrangement setting up this slush fund purports to be based on Keepseagle v. Vilsack, a compensation fund designed to redress multiple cases of Department of Agriculture discrimination against Native Americans. This current deal rests on slightly different footing seeing as it’s not designed to cure individual victims of a class action, but rather to hand out cash without oversight to random Trump supporters. Indeed the only thing even vaguely connecting this case to Keepseagle is that they’re almost assuredly going to hand the QAnon Shaman wads of taxpayer money.
Another reason why the fund shouldn’t be at the unilateral command of the president’s personal lawyer. Senator Van Hollen’s questioning about Blanche’s past work for Trump wasn’t trolling, it struck upon core ethical principles — the kind that the DOJ now threatens licensing authorities not to enforce. No matter how much Blanche yells, getting a new title doesn’t not absolve an attorney of their ethical obligations to a former client. Trump’s IRS suit is predicated on issues that existed while Blanche represented him personally, and there’s zero indication that Blanche wasn’t consulted on potential litigation surrounding that leak. Rather than calmly explain that he is appointing a deputy flunky to handle the fund to avoid any conflicts, Blanche decides to create a perfectly viral sound bite of himself losing his shit and repeating that he is, in fact, Trump’s former personal lawyer.
Just weapons grade stupid on parade down there.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
The post President Trump’s Personal Lawyer Todd Blanche, Reminds Everyone That He Is TRUMP’S PERSONAL LAWYER appeared first on Above the Law.
There’s a lot to unpack from Todd Blanche’s Senate testimony — up to and including his unwillingness to address the fact that child molesters are dangling the promise of new January 6 slush fund cash to silence victims — but one heated exchange with Senator Van Hollen more or less sums up the general air of buffoonery that Blanche brings to the Department of Justice:
To be fair, Lionel Putz here correctly said “Acting Attorney General,” making clear that his current title is a lot more ephemeral than his last one.
This is what we call the Streisand Effect. In internet parlance, the Streisand Effect refers to, as Urban Dictionary defines it, “A social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information.” Senator Van Hollen flagged the fact that Blanche has a longstanding attorney-client relationship with Donald Trump as a serious conflict of interest now that Trump represents the IRS — claiming to be adverse to Trump personally, unitary executive theory be damned — in a settlement that gives Blanche unchecked authority to distribute almost $2 billion in taxpayer dollars to January 6 rioters. We have a lot of rules set up to avoid lawyers representing clients against former clients. Blanche disregards these because this case — from the start — was just a shifting blob faking an adversarial posture when convenient and dropping it just as quickly when it wasn’t.
The arrangement setting up this slush fund purports to be based on Keepseagle v. Vilsack, a compensation fund designed to redress multiple cases of Department of Agriculture discrimination against Native Americans. This current deal rests on slightly different footing seeing as it’s not designed to cure individual victims of a class action, but rather to hand out cash without oversight to random Trump supporters. Indeed the only thing even vaguely connecting this case to Keepseagle is that they’re almost assuredly going to hand the QAnon Shaman wads of taxpayer money.
Another reason why the fund shouldn’t be at the unilateral command of the president’s personal lawyer. Senator Van Hollen’s questioning about Blanche’s past work for Trump wasn’t trolling, it struck upon core ethical principles — the kind that the DOJ now threatens licensing authorities not to enforce. No matter how much Blanche yells, getting a new title doesn’t not absolve an attorney of their ethical obligations to a former client. Trump’s IRS suit is predicated on issues that existed while Blanche represented him personally, and there’s zero indication that Blanche wasn’t consulted on potential litigation surrounding that leak. Rather than calmly explain that he is appointing a deputy flunky to handle the fund to avoid any conflicts, Blanche decides to create a perfectly viral sound bite of himself losing his shit and repeating that he is, in fact, Trump’s former personal lawyer.
Just weapons grade stupid on parade down there.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
