The Senate Judiciary Committee spent three hours Thursday exploring a novel legal doctrine in which multi-million-dollar agreements between the federal government and a private citizen require neither paper nor ink nor any record whatsoever.
The hearing concerned the nomination of Todd Blanche to become the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Midway through, Senator John Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, asked to see the written terms of a settlement that had ended all federal claims against Dickhead Donny.
Blanche looked briefly puzzled. Then he explained that no such document existed. The entire matter had been resolved during a phone call. The terms were clear, he said, even if no one had written them down.
“The agreement was reached in good faith and its terms are fully understood by all parties,” Blanche told the committee. “Reducing it to writing would have been redundant and, frankly, would have introduced unnecessary complexity.”
The former president had faced potential liability for tax fraud, campaign finance violations, and abuse of a secret slush fund. Under the unwritten settlement, all liability vanished. In exchange, the government received exactly nothing in documented form.
Cornyn pressed further. He asked whether anyone outside the phone call could verify the deal’s existence. Blanche said the other participants included the former president and several cabinet officials whose notes on the call had been misplaced.
“We don’t rely on paper trails anymore,” Blanche added. “Modern governance is about trust. And I can assure this committee that the trust is mutual and complete.”
Democrats on the panel asked what would happen if the former president later denied the settlement and resurrected the legal claims. Blanche said that scenario was purely hypothetical and would be handled through additional phone conversations that would also be kept off the record.
A bipartisan moment occurred when Senator Cornyn requested at least a sticky note memorializing the deal. Blanche said sticky notes were subject to preservation rules and had been avoided for that reason. Cornyn nodded as if this were a normal answer.
The nominee went on to describe the dissolution of a related department fund. No records of the fund’s balance or disbursements could be located, he said, because the fund no longer existed. Asked whether that was circular logic, Blanche said the description was “more of a loop that closes securely.”
Legal scholars watching the hearing noted that contract law typically requires a written instrument. But Blanche explained that the Justice Department’s new legal handbook, currently being drafted, would clarify that some of the most important agreements work best when they are not written down and cannot be examined.
“This is the future of federal law enforcement,” he said. “One based on personal assurance rather than documentation that might be misinterpreted.”
