Todd Blanche was visibly frustrated during an exchange with Sen. Cory Booker as part of his confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“You can ask the questions, but you cannot control my answers,” Blanche said, raising his voice. “I’m under oath, and I can answer the questions as I choose to answer them.”
The back-and-forth took place as Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, was questioning Blanche — President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as attorney general —about attending a dinner hosted by David Ellison, the head of Paramount, while the Justice Department was investigating Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
“You don’t even let me answer, man. That’s incredible,” Blanche said at another point in that exchange.
Booker also pressed Blanche about his meeting last summer with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, contrasting it with Blanche’s claims earlier in the day that he would be prohibited from meeting directly with victims of Maxwell or her co-conspirator, the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The senator called Blanche’s claim “utter nonsense,” adding that “counsel can be present, or a client can waive their right to have counsel. But you’re a lawyer. You know this. That was not truthful.”
Last summer, when he was deputy attorney general, Blanche took the highly unusual step of interviewing Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, over the course of two days as part of an effort by the Trump administration to quell outrage over its handling of the Epstein files.
Earlier Wednesday, Blanche demurred when asked by the top Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, to meet with 10 Epstein victims present in the hearing room, saying, “they have lawyers, as you know. I’m prohibited from meeting directly with them.”
“I was stunned earlier by your conversation with one of my colleagues that you wouldn’t even commit to meeting with the survivors, but you did meet with Ghislaine Maxwell,” Booker told Blanche.
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