Trump destroys everyone who stands with him

At 11:11 this morning, a flustered and weary United States senator emerged from a heated meeting and stepped into the hallway lined with reporters inside the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. John Cornyn, the senator whom Donald Trump had recently rejected for not being loyal enough to the president, confirmed just how dangerous this moment has become for our country. With cameras pointed directly at him, he admitted that Congress, at least its Republican members, voluntarily abandoned their constitutional responsibilities when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted moments before to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination to attorney general. Cornyn was direct and didn’t hold back when he made this admission: “There’s nothing we could do to rein in the president.”

He didn’t say “we chose not to” or “we disagreed but were outvoted.” He said there is nothing they could do. He is one of 100 people elected specifically as a check on executive power, a balance to the equal branches of government, and he told the American people that there was nothing that could be done to stop Donald Trump, specifically using the words “rein him in,” admitting that he had gone too far.

What makes this so much worse is that it simply isn’t true. Congress has, and always has, held the power to rein in the president. They could begin ending this authoritarian takeover today. In fact, just minutes before Cornyn made that statement, they had been handed a near-perfect opportunity to do exactly that. Cornyn was one of 12 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee along with 10 Democrats. The math is quite simple. If Cornyn, or Thom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina, had voted no, Todd Blanche’s nomination would have died in committee. That’s all it would have taken. The power was in his hands, and all the other Republicans simply chose not to use it. Instead, he told us they were powerless.

Both Cornyn and Tillis were the holdouts on this vote to start with and could have impacted this very unpopular and downright dangerous appointment. Neither had anything to lose. Cornyn already lost his Republican primary to Ken Paxton after Trump endorsed his opponent, ending his career in Congress once his current term ends in January 2027. Tillis chose not to run for reelection, saying: “In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species. It’s not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking reelection.” He made this announcement shortly after Trump threatened to primary him when he did not vote for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”. They were lame ducks with no reelection to worry about or base to appease. They no longer had to worry about earning Trump’s approval or raising money for another campaign. They were two of the freest men in United States politics and the Senate, and they still could not bring themselves to say no and do the right thing. Tillis himself admitted as much during the meeting, “The bottom line is nobody is clean here. And until we start recognizing this behavior as bad, we’re just going to one-up it.” He said that and then voted yes anyway.

This was not the only performative politics to come out of Congress today. This afternoon, after the advancement vote was made, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, announced that she would vote no on Blanche when the nomination reaches the full Senate floor. Although this sounds like resistance, it is not. It is just more theater from Collins ahead of a competitive midterm, where she will be fighting to hold on to her seat. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once said, “Susan Collins votes with us only when her vote doesn’t matter.” A conservative radio host, John Fredericks, put it even more honestly: “Every important vote in history, she’s been there for us, every single one. And the votes where she voted no, it didn’t matter, because we weren’t going to get there anyway, or we already had enough positive votes.” This is the same senator who confirmed RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, and Jeanine Pirro. She has voted for 95 percent of Trump’s judicial nominees and voted to acquit Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial, saying she believed he had learned a pretty big lesson. Collins does not break from the party, she just positions herself to look like she tried, after the outcome is already decided for self-preservation. She cares for self over country.

Even without her vote, if she actually votes no when the time comes, this may still be a very tight vote. With Mitch McConnell absent, Blanche can only lose one more Republican vote beyond Collins and still be confirmed. If even one more senator, possibly Lisa Murkowski or Bill Cassidy or anyone else, decides to vote no, the nomination would fail. The fight is not over. But it is not looking good because of who Todd Blanche is and his connection to the president.

Todd Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal defense attorney. He represented the president during the hush money trial that ended in a conviction on all 34 felony counts. He left a partnership at one of the largest law firms in the world to become Donald Trump’s counsel. And that is how he was handed the Department of Justice.

Since becoming acting attorney general, Blanche has fired more than 200 prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on cases involving Trump, and they didn’t even try to hide what he did. Even going so far as to brag about it at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he told the audience, “There is not a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with those prosecutions.” Three of the fired FBI employees immediately sued, citing his own words as evidence that the firings were political and illegal.

He was the one responsible for moving to vacate the convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders who were found guilty for their roles in the January 6 insurrection and attack on the United States Capitol. A judge appointed by Trump himself ruled that those dismissals were made “without regard to the seriousness of the conduct at issue” and that they were sought because the president wanted them, not because the law required them.

He brought a second indictment against former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post of seashells on the sand. A federal judge questioned the entire foundation of the case, suggested that prosecutors had indicted Comey first and investigated later, and ordered grand jury materials released to the defense.

He is the one who helped bring Trump’s dream of a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to life. He designed it to compensate people like the January 6 rioters with taxpayer money. He negotiated the IRS settlement that gave Trump and his family immunity from audits on past tax returns. He told NBC News that Americans should be “happy” that Trump is deeply involved in DOJ matters. He said that if the president decided to replace him, his response would be, “Thank you very much. I love you, sir.” He signed a court filing about the White House ballroom, but the same as how Trump uses social media, complete with accusations of “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” And since he took over the DOJ, more than 16,000 Justice Department employees have left on his watch.

There is so much concern about his permanent appointment that more than 1,200 former DOJ employees from 14 administrations wrote a letter to the Senate opposing this nomination. They included dozens of former U.S. attorneys, agency heads, and senior leaders from across DOJ departments and the FBI, including dozens who worked alongside Blanche in his own former office, the Southern District of New York. The executive director of Justice Connection, the organization that coordinated the letter, said, “Since his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche has shown time and again that his guiding star is fealty to the President, not the Constitution.” The letter spoke of the vindication-driven prosecutions of the president’s political opponents, the erasure of accountability for January 6 and the insurrectionists, the mishandling of the Epstein files, and the repeated violation of court orders. It said the consequences of Blanche’s leadership have left “communities less safe, Americans’ rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable.” Two of his former colleagues from the Southern District wrote separately that his legal training makes his actions all the more disturbing, because he knows the Department of Justice should never be used as a tool of personal power.

Regardless of what ends up happening, whether he is confirmed or not, the writing is already on the wall for his eventual downfall because there is a pattern with Trump and his lawyers, and it never ends well for the lawyers.

Michael Cohen was Trump’s personal attorney and fixer for more than a decade. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison, and he was disbarred. The judge called his crimes “a veritable smorgasbord of illegal conduct.” Cohen later said that Trump offers his sycophants a small taste of the fame and notoriety they desire, but will never offer them “a plate at the dinner table.” He said, “He eats alone.”

Rudy Giuliani served as Trump’s personal attorney during his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, destroying the legacy of his leadership after Sept 11. He was disbarred in both New York and Washington, D.C., and found liable for $148 million in a defamation case brought by two Georgia election workers. He ended up having to declare bankruptcy. The New York appeals court that disbarred him wrote that “the seriousness of his misconduct cannot be overstated.”

John Eastman, the architect of the fake electors scam, was disbarred in California by order of the state Supreme Court. The bar judge who recommended disbarment said Eastman had “failed to demonstrate that he no longer presents a threat to the public.”

Sidney Powell pleaded guilty in the Georgia election case to six misdemeanor counts and was sentenced to six years of probation. Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty and had her license suspended. Kenneth Chesebro, the man who designed the fake electors plan, pleaded guilty to a felony and was disbarred in New York. The court wrote that his conduct “undercuts the very notion of our constitutional democracy that he, as an attorney, swore an oath to uphold.”

And now Todd Blanche, the man who represented Trump when he was convicted on all 34 criminal counts, will most likely be confirmed as the permanent Attorney General of the United States. He is walking the same path every one of them walked, and he either is in too deep to realize it or thinks that he will be the special one spared from Trump’s destruction.

The Trump curse is not limited to lawyers. It extends to everyone who gets close enough to him and those who do his bidding. That is the warning that every Republican in Congress should be hearing right now and taking it to heart. Cornyn and Tillis had nothing to lose and everything to gain by using this moment to draw the line and to be the senators who stood up and said enough. Who put country over self and upheld their constitutional duty and their oath of office.

Because when the tide turns, and it will turn, and the American people start holding these members of Congress accountable for everything they have enabled over the past 19 months, the reckoning will be swift. They are going to face the same fate as every other person who tied themselves to Trump and believed they would be the exception. It did not work out well for any of them. It never has and it never will.

This was their moment, it was right there, and they let it pass. Because after the midterms, and Democrats take back control of Congress, we are going to watch these same people scramble to distance themselves from everything they helped build and from Trump himself. They will jump ship, and they will try to rewrite their own histories. They will come out with carefully crafted explanations for why they went along with it, how they were working behind the scenes to save the country from an even worse fate, and how they had no choice. And we will hold every one of them accountable regardless of what they say or do.

Tonight, in five states, Americans went to the polls to vote in primaries, deciding who they want representing them in the races that could ultimately determine control of Congress. By the time the votes are counted, we will have a clearer picture of where voters want this country to go. Whether they are leaning progressive, centrist, or somewhere in between matters less, right now, than the fact that they are participating in the process. Because in this moment, the only thing we need to focus on is supporting the candidates who will stand up to Donald Trump and lead us out of these dark days. That is it. We are not looking for people who check every box, nor are we looking for a life partner. Right now, this is not about finding the perfect politician; it is about survival. This is about saving our country.

Once we take back Congress, and we have things moving in the right direction, we can have the harder conversations where we talk about 2028, and we work to elect people who are not just the opposite of Trump, but people who can genuinely take this country where it needs to go. But that comes later. Right now, the mission is clear. Defeat every Trump loyalist on the ballot.

That is how we rein in the president even when those who were elected to do so refuse. November is our moment to do just that, and I know we will. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: My youngest loves to ride horses, and I was able to be there for her lesson today. This horse was cracking me up! He was part dog and part horse. He wanted to cuddle with her the whole time, even putting his head against her shoulder to give her a hug.

Sources:

WATCH: Cornyn says ‘there’s nothing we could do’ to rein in Trump, defends Blanche deal on DOJ fund: PBS YouTube video

Senate Judiciary Committee advances Todd Blanche’s nomination along party lines, 12-10 — AP

Either senator could have blocked the nomination with a single no vote — ABC News

Collins says she will oppose Blanche on the Senate floor — NBC News

Blanche boasts at CPAC that all 200+ employees who worked on Trump cases have been removed — CNN

Three fired FBI employees sue, citing Blanche’s own words — Prism News

More than 1,200 former DOJ employees oppose Blanche’s nomination — Justice Connection

Tillis announces retirement after Trump threatens to primary him — CBS News

Paxton defeats Cornyn in Texas Republican primary after Trump endorsement — NPR

Blanche left his law firm to represent Trump, said “I love you, sir” if replaced — NBC News