Cory Booker Calls Todd Blanche 'One of the Most Corrupt' Officials Ever, One Day After AG Hearing

Since Todd Blanche's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday, July 13, fallout continued. On Tuesday, July 14, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) went on MS NOW's The Beat and said that if confirmed, Blanche would be "one of the most corrupt" law enforcement officers the country has ever had leading the Justice Department.

Booker's language was blunt and personal. "So you can go through over and over again... theres numerous things that should bury this confirmation," he said, according to Breitbart's write-up of the segment. He argued that even some conservatives have turned on Blanche over his handling of the Epstein files, which Booker said re-traumatized survivors by releasing personal information. He also cited more than 1,200 former Justice Department officials, appointed under both parties, who have publicly urged the Senate not to confirm Blanche.

That 1,200-signature letter is real and has circulated for weeks. It is an unusually large bipartisan alumni objection for a Cabinet nominee, though it remains an advocacy document, not a legal finding. Booker is a political opponent of the nomination, and his "most corrupt ever" framing is his opinion, not an adjudicated fact. No court has found Blanche personally corrupt; what courts have found is that the underlying IRS lawsuit was legally baseless.

The ruling that's driving the pile-on

Booker's comments landed one day after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, in the Southern District of Florida, issued a scathing ruling that the $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS was "a pretext for a 'settlement' that had no viable basis in law or fact," as Reason reported. Williams found the case never involved a genuine dispute between adverse parties because Trump controlled both sides of it, given that his own administration was defending the agency he was suing.

Trump's suit, joined by two of his sons and the Trump Organization, alleged "at least" $10 billion in damages from an IRS contractor's leak of his tax returns. Reason noted the suit was filed more than two years after Trump learned of the leak, past the statute of limitations, and rested on the legally shaky claim that a contractor counts as a federal "officer or employee" under the relevant law.

The Justice Department never contested any of it. Blanche then approved what Reason called a "settlement with myself," funneling $1.8 billion in taxpayer money toward an "Anti-Weaponization Fund" for people who said they'd been targeted by "lawfare." Public Citizen's co-presidents, Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, pointed to the same ruling as fresh grounds for the Senate to reject Blanche outright.

Durbin says Blanche called it 'a mistake'

Separately, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, told Courthouse News that Blanche privately admitted fault over the fund in a one-on-one meeting ahead of the hearing. "What more can I do? What more can I say? I made a mistake. I don't want to see the weaponization fund go forward," Durbin quoted Blanche as saying, and Durbin confirmed he was quoting Blanche directly when asked.

But Durbin also said Blanche refused to put that admission in writing. When Durbin pushed him to formally rescind the fund, Blanche reportedly said he'd work with Congress to "codify" its end if lawmakers wanted to do that themselves. Durbin called it "a very weak defense."

That refusal to formalize the fund's death isn't new; it's the same sticking point that has run through this story for a month. In June, per CBS News, the Trump administration rebuffed a demand from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, that Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward file a sworn declaration that the fund was dead "in any manner, or under any name." DOJ lawyer Andrew Block called that demand unnecessary and raised "separation of powers concerns" about compelling sworn testimony from senior executive branch officials.

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which represents plaintiffs in that suit, said it was "telling" that officials still won't say under oath that the fund is dead. Brinkema's preliminary injunction blocking the fund remains in place, and it's still unresolved whether her court will accept DOJ's public statements as sufficient to end the case or force the sworn declaration DOJ has so far refused to provide.

What's actually established, and what isn't

It is established, by a federal judge's written ruling, that the underlying IRS lawsuit lacked legal merit and functioned as a vehicle for a payout benefiting Trump and his family. It is established, via Durbin's on-record account, that Blanche privately called the fund a mistake, though Durbin's characterization has not been independently confirmed by Blanche or DOJ, and no DOJ spokesperson responded to Courthouse News' request for comment.

What is not established is Booker's broader claim that Blanche would be one of the most corrupt attorneys general in history. That's a political judgment from a senator who voted against the nomination, not a legal finding. No indictment, ethics charge, or formal misconduct finding has been filed against Blanche personally. The Senate Judiciary Committee's vote on his confirmation, and whether Republicans require any written commitment on the fund before backing him, is the next concrete step to watch.