Todd Blanche defends Patel for FBI at attorney general nomination hearing

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse ripped FBI Director Kash Patel in a question dripping with contempt for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about Blanche’s appointment as permanent AG.

“How long do you intend to put up with that Kash Patel character?” Whitehouse, DR.I., asked Blanche who, if confirmed as attorney general, would lead the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI.

“Does he get along well with his flight attendants? Are you confident he’s not late for work?” Whitehouse asked.

“Are you sure none of his travel is an excuse for vacation activities like snorkeling, the Olympics, and visiting girlfriends?” Whitehouse asked. “Are you sure that he knows what he’s doing? Do you vouch for him? Are you determined to see that he doesn’t lie to this committee?”

Blanche replied: “That’s an incredibly annoying question, Senator.”

“And I have full confidence in Director Patel and the work he does every day,” said Blanche, who serves as acting attorney general.

“Good, you’ll have that,” Whitehouse replied.

Patel has faced criticism for his use of the FBI director’s plane for various trips, including a trip to Milan to watch the US men’s hockey team in the Olympic finals and to watch his girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wilkins, sing the national anthem at a wrestling event in Pennsylvania. Patel is suing The Atlantic magazine for $250 million, alleging defamation over an article claiming he abuses alcohol.

Blanche earlier on Wednesday defended the DOJ’s handling of files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday as she testified against President Donald Trump.

Blanche also faced criticism from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., for seizing cryptocurrency-related assets last year while “issuing an order disbanding the DOJ’s crypto enforcement team and shutting down ongoing criminal investigations into the crypto industry.”

Blanche has yet to respond to Durbin’s criticism of his crypto holdings during the hearing.

In response to a question from Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, about the Epstein files, Blanche said, “We’ve been working hard, lawyers working hard inside the department, to do the right thing, and we will continue to do so.”

Blanche said that when Trump signed a law last week requiring the DOJ to make public all the documents it had in its possession related to Epstein, the department “underwent the Herculean task of reviewing millions and millions of potentially responsive files.”

Blanche in January, as deputy attorney general, said the DOJ would not publicly release millions more pages about Epstein after disclosing more than 3 million pages.

In her testimony Wednesday, Blanche said some of the withheld files did not meet legal requirements because, among other things, they included information related to another case involving another Epstein.

The DOJ, in a statement on Jan. 30 regarding the final release of the files, it said that those withheld fell into several categories, including duplicate documents from different investigations and those withheld under certain legal rights.

A group of Epstein victims this week released a video urging the Senate to block Blanche as attorney general because their personal information was made public by the DOJ in the release of files even though that information should have been redacted.

On Wednesday, Blanche said, “The reviewers were trained lawyers, experienced within the department and the FBI. They took pains to use the correct redactions. There were mistakes made, so about 1% of the redactions had to be redacted after the Epstein files were released.”

“If we heard that the name of the victim was not written correctly, we would immediately take down the document and correct it,” said Blanche. “That doesn’t excuse the mistakes I made, but it means we tried to fix them.”

Blanche, who first gained national attention as Trump’s criminal defense attorney, has served as acting attorney general since early April, when Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of Epstein-related matters.

Trump in a Truth Social post on Tuesday praised Blanche, calling her “a great lawyer, always right,” and writing, “every Republican Senator should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blanche, ASAP.”

Blanche also faced questions Wednesday about her decision to create a $1.8 billion DOJ anti-appropriation fund to compensate alleged victims of Justice Department prosecutions.

The fund, which Blanche said she withdrew despite strong criticism from Republican and Democratic officials, was part of a lawsuit filed by Trump against the IRS over the leak of his tax records. Although Blanche said that the fund will not be created, Trump has included the idea of ​​renewing its creation.

Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he had a 30-minute meeting with Blanche earlier in the day that included a discussion about the DOJ fund.

Durbin said Blanche told him: “‘What else can I do? What else can I say? I made a mistake. I don’t want to see the armory go forward.’

Durbin said then asked Blanche, “Why don’t you write it? Do something to make it an honest statement about yourself?”

The member of parliament also said that Blanche said that she would be willing to work with Congress to agree that this fund cannot be built.

“It looks like a weak defense,” Durbin said.

CNBC requested comment from the DOJ regarding that account, as well as Durbin’s description of how Blanche handled the cryptocurrency issue during their private meeting.

Durbin has been critical of Blanche’s tenure as attorney general since her nomination, saying she is concerned about the money Trump administration officials are making.

“I said to Todd Blanche, it just boils down to this: I don’t think if you want to get rich you should run for public office,” Durbin said Tuesday. “I don’t understand all the money that is made in this state.”

Durbin said Blanche “didn’t address any of those things directly,” but said she “addressed her position on cryptocurrency.”

Blanche said she consulted with the Office of Legal Counsel and ethics officials about her cryptocurrency holdings, according to a Durbin aide who was at the session with reporters.

“He had about $160,000 in cryptocurrency and was told he had to get rid of it,” Durbin said.

In an interview with Blanche on Tuesday, Durbin told the media, “I started with the issue of corruption.”

“And while he was going through this process of passing it on to his children and grandchildren, there were decisions made regarding the regulation of cryptocurrency, many people, and many things that I have read, suggest that they were reducing government scrutiny of their work,” said the Senator.

“He owns the cryptocurrency. He passes it on to his family. He makes the decisions … he is involved in the decisions at the level of the Judiciary about the scrutiny of this industry,” said Durbin.

“That sounds like, on its face, a conflict of interest.”

Another confusion that Democrats are expected to focus on is the prosecution of people whom Trump considers enemies – former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James – by the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia, last fall. That office is overseen by the DOJ.

Both of those cases, the allegations of which were strongly denied by both defendants, were dismissed by a judge in November after she ruled that the interim US attorney who prosecuted the case was illegally appointed.

– CNBC’s Justin Papp contributed to this article.