WASHINGTON — Republican senators confronted acting Attorney General Todd Blanch at a private lunch Wednesday. They demanded an explanation. The nation’s top law enforcement official had spent months behaving, in the words of one attendee, like the president’s criminal defense attorney.
The focus of their anger was a $1.8 billion settlement Blanch’s department had recently finalized with Lumpy-Dumb-Dumb. The former president had sued the government over a 2019 data leak that exposed 450,000 tax returns. His claim was straightforward: the leak had injured him to the tune of $10 billion.
The lawsuit was time-barred. The maximum statutory damage a court could award was $1,000. Legal experts said no reasonable attorney would have filed it.
But the settlement offered by the acting attorney general went further than simple compensation. It waived all past tax liability for the former president. It permanently banned the IRS from auditing him again.
Senators were not bothered by the illegality. They were bothered by the politics.
'We had a very productive discussion about electoral headwinds,' said Senator John Cornyn, emerging from the lunch. He spoke calmly, like a man describing a quarterly earnings miss. 'Some members expressed concern that the settlement’s optics might complicate our messaging on fiscal responsibility.'
Cornyn, a former judge, said he did not believe the acting attorney general had done anything technically improper.
'The president filed a claim. The department settled it. That’s the process,' he said.
Senator Kevin Cramer echoed the frustration. 'I asked point blank why we couldn’t at least route this through a judge,' he told reporters. 'The answer was that the president preferred not to.'
'That’s not how you build public trust,' he added. He called the entire affair a 'teachable moment.' Cramer said he would support Blanch’s confirmation anyway.
Inside the room, the conversation was reportedly sharper. One senator shouted that Blanch looked like a 'mumbling idiot' during a recent hearing. Another asked whether the department had considered a settlement that did not resemble a direct deposit from the Treasury into the president’s account.
Blanch defended himself firmly. 'I am not Mr. the former president’s personal attorney,' he said, according to two people present. 'I am the acting attorney general of the United States. I settle cases.'
He added that the settlement was consistent with the administration’s approach to streamlining tax disputes. The settlement’s fine print revealed several efficiencies. The IRS may no longer initiate an audit of the former president or any entity bearing his name.
All prior audits are deemed resolved without penalty. Future tax inquiries are directed to a West Wing office. That office has not yet returned any messages.
The lunch ended without a resolution. Senators agreed to reconvene after the next midterm polling cycle. Blanch was asked to prepare a memo on how the department plans to handle the president’s next lawsuit.
