Takeaways from Blanche and Clayton hearings: Fund for Trump allies and 2020 election at the forefront

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Katie Bo Lillis, Holmes Lybrand, Katelyn Polantz, Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — In twin hearings Wednesday, two nominees integral to executing President Donald Trump’s agenda worked to convince senators that they were up to the task: Todd Blanche for attorney general, and Jay Clayton to lead the US Intelligence community.

The men faced intense scrutiny from the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees on whether they could properly steer some of the federal government’s most critical divisions.

Blanche has a razor thin margin of error, as even a single Republican no-vote in committee could tank his nomination. That left him to walk a careful line between calmly assuring Republicans that he will continue his aggressive tenure at the Justice Department but without political interference from the president.

And though he appeared to achieve that goal, some Republicans still said Wednesday that they hadn’t made a final decision, notably Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

Clayton, who is currently the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York — Blanche’s former office — also faced tense questions about the winner of the 2020 election and a set of controversial subpoenas Clayton signed for New York Times journalists.

Here are takeaways from the hearings:

Projecting calm

Blanche focused on staying calm and deflecting tough questions from Democrats and a few skeptical Republicans, emphasizing he could serve as attorney general without White House political interference — despite the fact he was previously Trump’s personal attorney.

Overall, he stuck to this strategy. Unlike his predecessor, Pam Bondi, who was known for fiery, prepared responses, Blanche largely avoided relying on notes and handled attacks confidently.

There were some tense exchanges with Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Adam Schiff. Booker, for instance, tried to push an argument about whether Blanche attended a private dinner with Paramount chairman David Ellison while the Justice Department was reviewing Paramount’s planned takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. Blanche snapped: “You won’t even let me answer the question, man.”

Earlier, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, used his time to criticize FBI Director Kash Patel and asked whether Blanche would allow Patel’s alleged misconduct, including misuse of FBI aircraft, to continue. Blanche replied, “That’s an extraordinarily obnoxious question, Senator.”

For Clayton, testy exchanges — particularly over election-related responses — exasperated lawmakers. Still, the overall tenor of the hearing suggested that his nomination is on track.

Clayton is also boosted by the man Trump chose as acting director, Bill Pulte, who has drawn bipartisan alarm over his complete lack of national security experience, and Democrats have been keen to keep his tenure short.

‘Anti-weaponization Fund’ key to GOP support

Two of the Justice Department’s most controversial efforts were front and center at Blanche’s hearing: the Epstein saga and the anti-weaponization fund.

Some conservatives say they’re still deciding whether to back Blanche after he signed the nearly $1.8 billion fund, an effort critics warned could finance allies of the president, including some who stormed the Capitol.

Blanche insisted that “the weaponization fund is dead,” and said that the tax addendum — which is the only part of the agreement between Trump’s personal attorneys and the Justice Department still stands — “binds only the IRS and by extension the Treasury” from investigating the president for potential crimes, not other agencies.

One of the possible GOP defectors, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, told Blanche he had done well during the hearing and signaled to CNN he was leaning towards supporting the nomination

“I have to have absolute certainty that 1776 fund cannot rear its ugly head,” said Tillis, at times a Trump critic who is not running for reelection.

On Epstein, Blanche defended DOJ’s handling of the release of more than 3 million pages of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The department drew severe criticism for their handling of the records — some were redacting perpetrators and not victims while others accidentally included names and details of the victims themselves.

Blanche defended the department’s work by saying that while redaction issues existed, they were corrected, adding that mistakes were addressed after release and that only about 1% of the redactions required fixes.

Fate of Blanche nomination hinges on two GOP senators with nothing to lose

The fate of Blanche’s nomination hinges on two Republican senators with nothing to lose: Cornyn and Tillis. If either votes against the nomination in committee, it would be enough to effectively kill it. But Tillis is leaning toward supporting Blanche, while Cornyn says he’s undecided.

Both senators, not returning next year after Cornyn lost his primary to a Trump-backed rival and Tillis decided to retire, have been among the sharpest GOP critics of the proposed “anti-weaponization” fund. Cornyn told CNN on Tuesday that his concerns are far from alleviated.

“Well, basically, he confirmed that it’s not dead. It can’t be changed without written consent of the parties, according to the settlement agreement. There is no written consent of the parties, and he agreed that it could be enforced as a matter of contract,” he told CNN.

Tillis said that he’s “leaning yes” on Blanche, but he made clear more steps needed to be taken to kill the weaponization fund.

Blanche’s relationship with Trump

Blanche faced scrutiny over his unusual position as being both the head of federal law enforcement and, previously, Trump’s defense lawyer.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked Blanche if he and Trump were “friends,” and if Blanche monitors all of Trump’s actions.

Blanche says he “is” the president’s lawyer, before correcting himself and saying he “was” the president’s lawyer, “and now I’m the deputy attorney general.”

The Justice Department’s ethics office has previously warned Blanche of the thorniness around Trump’s legal interests, and said he needed to recuse from investigations where Trump had an interest.

Just before the hearing ended, Blanche acknowledged he has recused himself from any involvement in DOJ action related to the now-ended three criminal cases against Trump: a false-business-records prosecution in New York, the January 6 investigation and the case of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Clayton ducks on 2020 election

In multiple instances, Clayton responded to direct questions from Democrats about whether Joe Biden had won the 2020 election by responding that Biden was “certified” as the president — neatly sidestepping the question of whether he “won,” an emotional third rail for Trump.

“Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question to have to indulge the president’s delusions?” asked Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat. “We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?”

In the final moments of the hearing, Clayton acknowledged to Vice Chair Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, that Biden had been “fairly and duly elected under our process.”

Vague plans over ODNI’s future

Clayton did not provide a detailed vision for the future of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a broad coordination, overnight and analysis agency created after 9/11 to avoid dangerous intelligence silos.

There has long been a bipartisan sense that the agency has become bloated and ineffective, and Cotton made no secret of his expectation that Clayton should dramatically reduce the agency’s staff if confirmed. Pulte has fired dozens of officials from the office already.

Questions about reporter subpoenas

Clayton told lawmakers he followed a “consultative process” with career prosecutors in his office before issuing a series of controversial subpoenas to New York Times reporters over an article published last week about the president’s use of a jet from the Qatari government as Air Force One.

“We followed the processes that we are required to follow,” Clayton told Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. He declined to go into further detail, citing an “ongoing national security investigation.”

Next steps

Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton, a Republican of Arkansas, said a panel vote is expected on Clayton next week.

The Judiciary hearing is scheduled to hear additional witness testimony Thursday with a vote likely later this month.

Republicans will put forth former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who served under President George W. Bush; Jon Adler, the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation; and Jennifer Bos, the mother of an Illinois woman whose body was allegedly abused by a noncitizen.

Democrats on the committee will call Elizabeth Oyer, who had served as a career pardon lawyer at the Department of Justice until she was fired by Blanche last year. Oyer, who sued over her ousting, claims she was terminated because she refused to bow to pressure from Trump appointees who wanted her to restore the gun rights of actor Mel Gibson, which he lost after a 2011 state domestic violence conviction.

Democrats also plan to call Dani Bensky, a survivor of Epstein.

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This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Manu Raju, Ted Barrett and Lauren Fox contributed to this report