Outgoing GOP Senator Still Gives Trump What He Wants With Todd Blanche

Senator Bill Cassidy has decided to vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, despite butting heads with the Trump administration in recent weeks.

Cassidy had voiced concerns over President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund, and was discussing the vote with his Republican colleague Senator Lisa Murkowski up until Friday morning. Murkowski and Maine Senator Susan Collins had decided to vote “no,” but Cassidy gave in to Trump even though he lost his Senate primary after the president endorsed Cassidy’s opponent.

“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this. But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump, and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor Friday while reading haltingly from prepared remarks. “This puts at risk the progress made in fighting violent crime, human and drug trafficking, and fraud.

“All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche. I will be criticized for this vote. What’s new?”

In addition to the slush fund, Blanche has come under fire for his handling of the Epstein files rollout, including shoddily redacting the available files, refusing to release more files, and dismissal of the victims. Several of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims had repeatedly sought to speak with Cassidy prior to his vote, but neither he nor his staff followed up, making his mention of stopping human trafficking ring hollow.

Last week, Cassidy also helped vote down an amendment that would have killed Trump’s IRS immunity deal. Even on his way out of the Senate, Cassidy seems unwilling to break with Trump or MAGA, and this vote ranks with his confirmation vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in its spinelessness.

This story has been updated.

The federal government provided false information in its attempt to prosecute independent journalist Georgia Fort, her lawyers say.

The Guardian reports that in court filings, Fort’s attorneys argue that federal prosecutors are trying to build a case against her over her coverage of a protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January. Fort’s team is asking for the case to be dismissed.

The administration has charged nearly 40 people, including Fort and former CNN anchor Don Lemon, over the protest, which centered on the fact that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent serves as a pastor for the congregation.

In at least 15 search warrant applications, Homeland Security Investigations said that Fort was chanting with protesters when they entered the church, a claim that the Department of Justice later admitted was false. Prosecutors tried to argue that the mistake wasn’t consequential because it wasn’t mentioned in Fort’s indictment.

Fort’s lawyers want more information about what prosecutors told the federal grand jury before it decided to indict the journalist, because they could have mentioned other false details.

“It is clear to me that in this case the government in many respects, candidly, has gone off the rails,” Matthew Ebert, one of Fort’s lawyers, said at a July 24 court hearing. “If the government is confused and can’t keep its story straight about the evidence in a 39-defendant case and incorrectly and repeatedly lumps my client, a journalist, together incorrectly with the conduct of others who were engaged in a protest, if they can’t keep it straight, all the more reason I’m concerned about what they said to the grand jury.”

After that hearing, Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko ordered federal prosecutors to turn over all grand jury proceedings related to Fort, as well as another journalist, Michael Beute.

Fort’s lawyers also have objections to federal investigators trying to access Fort’s reporting. A judge has rejected two attempts by investigators to get her work, noting that they seemed to have forgotten the Privacy Protection Act, which protects journalists from being forced to turn over their work to authorities.

The government has tried to gain access to Fort’s social media accounts too, including the names and contact information of her subscribers. When a judge put a stop to that, the government tried to use customs summonses. Those attempts are controversial in that the government won’t admit in writing what information it has obtained or whether it is continuing to use those summonses, suggesting that prosecutors are either trying to hide something, or they know that the government’s activities might not be legal.

Even Fox News struggled to put a positive spin on a dismal July jobs report, as the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs that month.

“Again, a disappointing jobs report,” Fox Business’s Lauren Simonetti said on Mornings With Maria on Friday. “Dow Futures way up, doubling where they were before.”

“Twenty-three thousand jobs lost in the month of July,” Maria Bartiromo continued before turning to investor Louis Navellier. “Louis, you wanted a weak report and you got it. Was this too weak?”

Many of the jobs lost were in local government and leisure and hospitality—real jobs that real people, who are already dealing with slowed wages and rising inflation, work. Instead of focusing on their material reality, Navellier framed the weak jobs report as good because massive corporations like Palantir were still benefiting.

“When Palantir announced their earnings, they basically had record earnings by decreasing their sales force,” he said. “So there’s this AI productivity boom underway.… This is great news, that’s why the market’s up … so this is great news. Obviously a lot of people disappeared from the workforce.”

The rest of the segment continued to ignore the real-world implications of 23,000 lost jobs in the month of July, especially paired with high gas prices and tariff-based inflation. And while the unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent, that is due to people leaving the workforce entirely, not getting new jobs.

President Trump, ever sensitive to negative jobs reports, has yet to comment.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski announced Friday that she would not support acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to permanently take on the role.

Murkowski laid out her concerns that, as head of the Department of Justice, Blanche would fail to check the Trump administration’s “worst impulses.”

“The politicization—even weaponization—of the Department did not start with this administration but has accelerated during it,” she wrote in a statement. “I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files; the sweeping immunity protections granted to the President, his family, and their businesses; the statements that have been made to anti-abortion groups; and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. Senators.”

Then Murkowski called Blanche’s bluff about Donald Trump’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The Alaska Republican claimed that the money was clearly headed for January 6 rioters, and was “only off the table because this nomination is pending and the Senate has leverage.”

“Once we vote, that will end, and there is no telling what the future holds,” she wrote.

Murkowski joins Maine Senator Susan Collins in opposing Blanche’s nomination. Now, all eyes are on Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose vote could sink Blanche’s confirmation. Cassidy has voiced his concerns about lawfare at the Department of Justice, and been an outspoken critic of Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. Blanche met with Murkowski and Cassidy on Capitol Hill Wednesday, but it was clearly not enough to convince at least Murkowski.

If Cassidy refuses to support Blanche before the August recess, Blanche would still continue to serve as acting attorney general. But the failure would represent a major blow to Trump’s grip on Republicans.

An endorsement from President Donald Trump wasn’t enough for Republican Representative Andy Ogles, who lost his primary election in Tennessee Thursday night.

Former state Agricultural Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, who won endorsements from Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, former Governor Bill Haslam, and other Republicans, such as former Trump Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, was able to take advantage of better fundraising and ad spending. 

But a key factor in the race was Tennessee’s newly redrawn congressional districts, which state Republicans pushed through after the Supreme Court’s April ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act. Tennessee used to have one majority-Black district, its 9th congressional district, but that was broken apart and absorbed into the state’s other majority-Republican districts, including Ogles’s 5th district. In Thursday’s primary, 82 percent of the district’s voters were newly added.  

Ogles has faced a myriad of scandals and controversies in office. He claimed earlier this year that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” he’s faced ethics concerns over how he handled campaign funds, he’s lied about his college education, and he raised money to build a garden for his stillborn child that was never built. 

Two years ago, the FBI even executed a search warrant on Ogles related to his financial misdeeds, seizing his phone in the process. In May this year, however, Trump’s Department of Justice signaled that it was wrapping up the probe, doing Ogles a solid in time for the midterms. Ultimately, it didn’t win Ogles any favors from his new constituents, who sent him packing.