{"id":4164,"date":"2026-07-30T20:14:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4164"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:14:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:14:48","slug":"blanches-loyalty-to-trump-sends-him-to-a-dark-place-as-judge-issues-stunning-rebuke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4164","title":{"rendered":"Blanche&#8217;s loyalty to Trump sends him to a dark place as judge issues stunning rebuke"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>In 1974, Watergate culminated in the first-ever resignation of a sitting US president. As Richard Nixon left office, his closest advisers were in prison\u2014or heading there. Among them were attorneys who broke the law that they had sworn to uphold, including his former attorney general John Mitchell.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4162\">Former aide warns: Trump cuts are \u2018going to screw\u2019 with seniors<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Acting AG Todd Blanche now seeks Mitchell\u2019s job.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Like Mitchell, Blanche was a successful lawyer at a prominent New York law firm before joining the president\u2019s team.<\/li>\n<li>Like Mitchell, Blanche has served the president slavishly. He personally interviewed Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell who then got reassigned to a Club Fed; he guided the unlawfully incomplete release of the Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) Epstein files; he spearheaded the effort to prosecute President Donald Trump\u2019s perceived enemies; and he defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents publicly after they killed innocent Americans.<\/li>\n<li>And like Mitchell, Blanche\u2019s ploys for Trump are sending him to a dark place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blanche figures prominently in the recent opinion of Judge Kathleen Williams of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. She  that Trump\u2019s purported settlement of his $10 billion case against the IRS was a collusive farce.<\/p>\n<p>The government had strong defenses to Trump\u2019s lawsuit claim, including the statute of limitations bar; it asserted none of them. That\u2019s not surprising: Trump controlled the executive branch (including the IRS), which put him on both sides of the supposed dispute. Such a clear conflict of interest meant that there was no real \u201cadverseness\u201d between the plaintiff and defendant and, therefore, no \u201cjusticiable case or controversy\u201d for the court to decide.<\/p>\n<p>The purported settlement agreement established a $1.776 billion \u201cAnti-Weaponization Fund\u201d to compensate, among others, January 6 insurrectionists whom Trump had pardoned. A separate, three-paragraph \u201crelease order\u201d forever immunized Trump, his family members, and related parties from IRS investigations, claims, and audits that have haunted him for decades.<\/p>\n<p>The court had harsh words\u2014and sanctions\u2014for the lawyers involved in perpetrating this abuse of the court process at taxpayers\u2019 expense:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Alejandro Brito represented Trump as plaintiff in the case. The judge referred him to the Florida Bar for consideration, review, and determination as to whether disciplinary action is appropriate.<\/li>\n<li>Daniel Z. Epstein\u2019s name appeared on the complaint, and he signed the purported \u201csettlement agreement\u201d on behalf of plaintiff Trump. Epstein was a former White House senior associate counsel and special assistant to President Trump from 2017 until 2020. Because he is licensed to practice in Texas, not Florida, the judge barred his future applications to practice pro hac vice (special admission for a particular case) in the Southern District of Florida for a year or until her further order.<\/li>\n<li>Stanley Woodward Jr., associate attorney general under Blanche at the Department of Justice, signed the bogus \u201csettlement agreement\u201d on behalf of the DOJ. The court observed that Woodward had \u201crepresented several individuals charged in connection with the events of January 6, 2021, at the United States Capitol. He also represented Walt Nauta, who was President Trump\u2019s personal aide and a co-defendant in the criminal matter involving the return of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.\u201d The judge directed the clerk to send a copy of her 56-page ruling to the District of Columbia bar, where disciplinary proceedings are ongoing against Woodward.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Blanche\u2019s Plight<\/h4>\n<p>And the court turned repeatedly to Todd Blanche:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>His signature alone was on the IRS \u201crelease order.\u201d Its attempt to waive tax audits contravened federal law prohibiting \u201cexecutive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Judge Williams was \u201cextremely troubled\u201d by Blanche\u2019s congressional testimony on May 19, 2026, as to why the settlement agreement was not submitted to the court for review. She found his answer \u201cat best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The court noted, \u201cIn this case,\u2026 notwithstanding his prior representation of President Trump, Blanche did not recuse [himself]\u201d from the IRS matter.<\/li>\n<li>Blanche\u2019s congressional testimony that the \u201cAnti-Weaponization Fund\u201d aspect of the settlement would not go forward proved that the entire agreement was collusive: \u201cActing Attorney General Blanche\u2019s apparent capacity to speak for both Plaintiffs and Defendants, sign a \u2018settlement\u2019 document on behalf of all Parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.\u201d That party was Donald Trump.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, she directed the clerk to send a copy of her ruling to the State Bar of New York, where Blanche is licensed. On June 22, 2026, more than 100 former state and federal judges had already filed a 73-page  against him there.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>A Freudian Slip and an Unhappy Ending<\/h4>\n<p>Early in Blanche\u2019s confirmation hearing on July 15, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked him about his relationship with Trump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m his lawyer,\u201d Blanche replied, before correcting himself to say that he \u201cwas\u201d his lawyer.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4160\">\u2018Laughably bad\u2019: There\u2019s \u2018never been a president\u2019 polling worse than Trump<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Blanche\u2019s initial impulse was closer to the mark. And he has already compromised his professional reputation and personal integrity.<\/p>\n<p>In the service of Nixon personally, John Mitchell was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury in connection with his role in the Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters and subsequent cover-up. He spent 19 months in prison and lost his law license.<\/p>\n<p>Will Todd Blanche see how his loyalty to Trump personally\u2014rather than to the nation he has taken an oath to serve\u2014is leading him to an unfortunate destination? Probably not.<\/p>\n<p>Will he learn anything from Judge Williams\u2019s stunning rebuke or the ethics complaints he already faces? Probably not.<\/p>\n<p>Will enough Republican senators stand up and refuse to confirm Blanche, who is blatantly unqualified to be the next attorney general? Probably not.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4159\">Trump loses the fifth straight time on appeal \u2014 thanks to his own judge<\/a><\/p>\n<p>All Americans will bear the consequences of his failures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1974, Watergate culminated in the first-ever resignation of a sitting US president. As Richard Nixon left office, his closest advisers were in prison\u2014or heading there. Among them were attorneys who broke the law that they had sworn to uphold, including his former attorney general John Mitchell.Ac&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Blanche&#039;s loyalty to Trump sends him to a dark place as judge issues stunning rebuke - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4164\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blanche&#039;s loyalty to Trump sends him to a dark place as judge issues stunning rebuke - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 1974, Watergate culminated in the first-ever resignation of a sitting US president. 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