Picture this – you live in a small municipality that has a working class population with the exception of a large landowner who operates a local business employing 500 people. The wealthy resident feels like he lacks the freedom to do what he likes, and resents the investigations into his failure to pay taxes and restrictions on his plans to develop his land. So he runs for mayor and spends millions to saturate the media with misinformation about his opponent – he wins the election. He installs his personal attorney as city attorney, then sues the city for harassment in the amount of one year’s city budget. The city attorney agrees to settle the suit (at the direction of his boss, the mayor) and not only enters into an annual payment to the mayor and his companies of $2M per year for a decade, but also agrees to shut down all prior year audits of the mayor and his companies. How do you feel about this raid on the city’s coffers? How do you feel about the city council that sits idly by while this happens?

Now bring those feelings to bear on the US government and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. The President filed suit against the government that he leads in the amount of $10B in damages (damages he would likely find impossible to prove, particularly given the $2.4B he earned in 2025 in addition to his successful election campaign). His former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, is now the acting AG and approved a settlement (without one day of the civil trial or depositions) including a $1.776B slush fund to be used as reparation payments to individuals that claim they were harmed by the government in the past. Also included in the settlement is an IRS agreement to halt all audits of the President, his family members, and his companies – with no ability to resume the inquiries in the future – an estimated $100M windfall. A judge later ruled that the settlement agreement was invalid – that the entire suit lacked merit as well as the abdication of the Department of Justice to ‘zealously defend the interests of the United States’. And this week the President has appealed that court ruling. One would think that in a case worth billions, the Department of Justice would choose to vigorously defend the American taxpayer and take the case to trial. But in a world where the Department of Justice defends the President personally and not the American people, this is the outcome. Greed wins out.

So it is natural that this acting AG would be nominated for the permanent role of Attorney General. Even if there is little difference – Todd Blanche will remain the AG even if he’s not confirmed by the Senate – the only difference would be that he would not be in the line of succession for the Presidency. He wouldn’t be removed from his job without an impeachment proceeding by Congress – and that won’t happen.

The confirmation process has been the low-light of the news this week (yes, we are at war again with Iran, and yes there are numerous midterm primary decisions being made, and yes Elon Musk is no longer a trillionaire). The Senate Judiciary Committee had hearings on the Blanche appointment and much of the discussion centered around the settlement agreement. Mr Blanche has said verbally that the reparations fund is dead (not the IRS agreement). A couple of the 11 Republicans on the committee (Senators Tillis and Cornyn) have raised concerns about the agreement and have asked for a written termination of the settlement. Mr. Blanche has been unwilling to put the government on the hook for withdrawing from the agreement – apparently his boss, the claimant, doesn’t agree. Thus the sycophantic behavior continues with the appeal of the judge’s ruling. Senator Tillis also placed a requirement that Mr Blanche meet personally with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein (something he had avoided for the past 18 months) – he finally sat in a room with many of the victims whom he wronged when he disclosed their names (illegally) in his selective Epstein file dump. But it is still possible that these supposedly maverick Senators could vote for Blanche.

In an ordinary confirmation process for Attorney General, the competence of the candidate would be pre-eminent. But, the Republicans appear to be discarding merit criteria from their process. For if merit played a role, Mr. Blanche would have no business being confirmed for assistant clerk let alone the chief legal officer of the country. Mr. Blanche has presided over such incompetence in his term that federal judges across the political spectrum have admonished federal prosecutors for ‘unlawful’, ‘unethical’, and ‘unseemly’ conduct. The DOJ has turned into a public law firm aimed at retaliating against critics of the President. Judges have admonished prosecutors for using AI to site fake cases. The DOJ has failed to follow judicial rulings. And the most high profile action of the DOJ, led by Mr Blanche, was the botched release of the Epstein Files – only a portion actually until more were found – highly redacting the perpetrators but failing to redact the victim names (as required by the law that prompted their release). This is not the record of competence and great leadership.

Yet the sycophants in the Senate majority have failed to step up and take their review of this nomination seriously. Instead they have cowed to President Trump (largely for fear of being a victim of his vitriol and tantrums). Even in the face of a blatant attempt by the President to treat the American Treasury as his own piggy bank. Even in the face of an AG candidate that is demonstrably failing to be the people’s attorney, let alone do his job with honor and competence. Senator Murkowski isn’t sure how she will vote. Senator Collins is still thinking about it. But really, what is there to think about?

This nomination saga will end at some point. And the nation will be left in the same place – Todd Blanche leading the Department of Justice with embarrassing incompetence, a President who uses the DOJ as a personal legal department of retribution and avenue for financial gain, and a Senate leadership that hovers between cowering and sycophantic behavior to their Dear Leader.

And the national disgrace continues…