MS NOW caught up with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Thursday morning as he explained where things stand with President Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee.
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Todd Blanche’s nomination to lead the Department of Justice has been on hold as Blanche refuses to put in writing that the DOJ won’t pursue an “anti-weaponization fund” as part of the president’s settlement with the IRS.
Trump’s taxes were exposed along with over 400,000 other Americans and businesses, so Trump sued the government for $10 billion. Trump is now telling the government to settle his case with an agreement that would set up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay out taxpayer dollars to people who feel they’ve been wronged by the U.S. government.
Cornyn told MS NOW’s Ali Vitali he wanted to confirm that the language in the contract between the U.S. government and Trump isn’t changing even after a federal judge shot down the deal.
“This settlement agreement can be modified, may be modified only upon the written agreement of the parties,” the contract reads, according to Cornyn.
During the committee hearing, he asked Blanche whether the parties had changed the language to say that the fund would no longer be created. Blanche answered, “no.”
So, Blanche’s claim that the fund was dead doesn’t square with the contract language keeping it in place. The two claims conflict and Cornyn wanted to know why, saying he’d be satisfied if they could square that.
“But, I don’t know, somebody somewhere, I don’t know whether it’s the White House, or somebody works there or somebody works for the president, is basically telling them don’t agree to those terms,” said the senator. “And so we’re kind of back to square one.”
Vitali asked if he got everything he needed from DOJ and if he doesn’t get what he needs is he willing to vote “no” on Blanche.
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“I am prepared to vote no. But I do — I do think, I owe it to my constituents and, to Mr. Blanche to try to negotiate in good faith. And that’s what we’ve been doing. And, so we’ll, we’ll see where things are this morning,” Cornyn continued.
Cornyn said he hadn’t talked to the president but that it might “help” and go a long way to helping understand what’s happening.
“Yeah. He could fix this in a minute. But, I don’t know whether — who he’s listening to or whether he’s motivated to do that. So, we’ll see what happens,” Cornyn continued.
Vitali said that Trump appears to believe that Cornyn is doing this because he doesn’t like Trump.
“You know, I voted with him 99.3 percent of the time,” Cornyn paused to laugh. “That has nothing to do with it. This is about making sure that, even if you’re the president of the United States, you don’t get favorable terms from the government in a settlement of a lawsuit that ordinary citizens would not get. Like protection from audits by the IRS into the foreseeable future. So I think this is about making sure that we maintain the integrity of our justice system.”
Vitali said that before the cameras went live, Cornyn had talked about how “every time he thinks they’re getting to a point where there’s some kind of deal that could get him to yes, someone else throws a wrench in it. And I asked, okay, well, what’s the wrench right now? And he seemed to focus in on the IRS piece of the deal.”
A federal judge has already declared that the so-called “settlement” between Trump and the federal government isn’t valid. She had asked that Blanche sign a sworn statement under penalty of perjury that the fund wouldn’t go forward. Blanche refused.
It was a major question for Cornyn during Blanche’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Over and over Blanche refused to say he would sign something or swear to something because he’d already indicated the fund was dead and felt it would be redundant.
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