by Duncan Levin | Aug 1, 2026 | Congress, Criminal Justice, Opinion
President Donald Trump’s threat to withdraw Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general permanently and renominate him again after recalcitrant Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis are out of the Senate underscores what this confirmation process is really about.
It is not about who will run the Justice Department but whether the Senate will endorse what Blanche has already done there.
Rejecting the nomination would not immediately remove Blanche from the department’s leadership.
Blanche, the acting attorney general since April, was previously the Senate-confirmed deputy attorney general, overseeing the department’s criminal and national security work. If Trump withdraws the nomination, Blanche could remain in control — potentially well into 2027 — under federal statutes governing succession and acting appointments. Rejecting the nomination would not immediately remove Blanche from the department’s leadership.
Set aside, for a moment, that the Republican opposition publicly blocking Blanche’s confirmation currently consists of two senators — both acting only after their political futures were settled. The context leading up to this week’s confirmation standoff is important.
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Trump may wait out GOP holdouts on Blanche nomination
July 31, 2026 / 09:31
Blanche was Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer from 2023 through 2024. As a former federal prosecutor, Blanche gave legal vocabulary and professional credibility to Trump’s grievances about investigative “witch hunts” and “corrupt” prosecutors. Blanche helped turn Trump’s belief that prosecution is political warfare into a theory of law enforcement.
Then Trump placed him in charge of law enforcement, and the defense theory became the governing philosophy.
Consider the record: Under Blanche, the DOJ has repeatedly pursued people Trump publicly identified as enemies. Cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General
by Anthony Coley | Jul 31, 2026 | Congress, Criminal Justice, Opinion
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would have us believe the story ended when he declared President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund dead. It didn’t. Recent news this week shows the administration may not need that fund at all.
Two days before the Senate Judiciary Committee was set to vote Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general, the Justice Department announced a seven-figure payout to Paul Vaughn, an anti-abortion activist whom Blanche has described as a victim of Biden-era weaponization. Vaughn is not a Capitol rioter, and his case is not theirs. But The New York Times reported the settlement for what it is: proof that this DOJ is willing to use an existing federal statute — the Federal Tort Claims Act, or FTCA — to compensate people it believes were victims of political prosecution.
The DOJ doesn’t need a new commission or a special compensation fund to if it chooses to compensate Jan. 6 defendants.
No commission. No $1.8 billion fund. No press conference about “victims of lawfare” seeking redress. Just a settlement, quietly reached, through the same legal machinery that hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants are now lined up to use.
That machinery didn’t appear this week. It was there before there was a fund, and it will be there long after Blanche has finished talking about the fund as though it were the whole story.
Congress enacted the FTCA to compensate people harmed by government negligence or misconduct. It has been used to resolve claims involving everything from medical malpractice at Veterans Affairs hospitals to the FBI’s failures preceding the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church. It was designed to compensate victims
by Keisha N. Blain | Jul 30, 2026 | Criminal Justice, Opinion
In a striking example of how misinformation can spread during a developing news story, a viral Facebook post claimed that Nolan Wells, the Black Mississippi teenager whose death after visiting a Gulf Coast island with a group of white friends remains under investigation, was related to the legendary journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells. But Michelle Duster, a verified descendant of Ida B. Wells, says that there is no historical or genealogical evidence linking the two and that she does not know of anyone alive today with the last name Wells who can claim a familial connection to her great-grandmother.
“It is important during this incredibly sensitive time to validate with credible sources any information that is shared,” Duster told me. “Despite viral social media posts implying a connection, Nolan Wells is not related to my great-grandmother Ida B. Wells. They simply share the same last name, as many others do.”
Nolan Wells is not related to my great-grandmother Ida B. Wells. They simply share the same last name, as many others do.michelle duster
As the investigation into the death of the athletically talented 18-year-old college student continues, social media has been rife with misinformation, including doctored images, fabricated audio recordings and unsubstantiated claims about what happened that weekend. Some of those unsubstantiated claims include the role race may have played in Wells’ death, including claims that he might have been killed by white people.
Again, we do not yet know how or why Nolan Wells died, and there is no evidence to date to prove any of those claims, including those alleging that race played a role in his death. But for
by The Associated Press | Jul 19, 2026 | Criminal Justice, News
Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, whose social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny has made them among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities, were arrested Saturday in Miami as British authorities sought their extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges.
The brothers were taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service on a sealed warrant, agency spokesperson Brady McCarron told The Associated Press, placing the United States at the center of an international legal saga that has stretched from Romania to Britain.
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ProPublica: White House official intervened into a federal investigation into Andrew Tate
November 19, 2025 / 11:35
British prosecutors announced Saturday that they were seeking the brothers’ extradition on charges alleging they raped and trafficked women between 2010 and 2017.
The dual U.S. and British citizens moved to Romania in 2016. They were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations and the case didn’t go forward because of legal and procedural irregularities.
The pending charges in the United Kingdom accused the brothers of abusing women in an area north of London, where they grew up. Their lawyers had said they denied the allegations.
Andrew Tate, 39, first reached a mainstream audience as a contestant on the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother” in 2016. He was removed from the show when a video surfaced that appeared to show Tate assaulting a woman. He and his brother Tristan Tate, 38, are vocal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Andrew Tate has amassed over 10 million followers on X but has been banned from platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram for violating hate speech guidelines. His most widely
by Steve Benen | Jun 4, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Criminal Justice, Maddowblog, News, Politics
At an Oval Office event on Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump took some time to claim that restaurants in Washington, D.C., are “reopening,” thanks to his role in creating a “vibrant” capital. The president made similar claims at a White House Cabinet meeting last week, patting himself on the back, insisting that “everyone’s going out to dinner,” in large part because he positioned National Guard troops to keep local residents safe.
The rhetoric was part of a pattern that began last summer when the Republican deployed Guard troops to D.C. streets, followed immediately by claims of extraordinary success. “I’ve made Washington, D.C., just an incredible place in literally four days,” he boasted during a Fox News appearance in August. The comments came the day after the president wrote on his social media platform, “People are flocking to D.C. again,” pointing to a trend he apparently made up.
In the weeks and months that followed, polls showed broad public skepticism about Guard troops patrolling civilian streets, but Trump nevertheless repeatedly boasted that, thanks to his Guard deployments, lawbreaking was a thing of the past in the nation’s capital. Even during his State of the Union address, delivered in February, the president assured the public that “we have almost no crime anymore” in Washington.
Though I wish that were true, there’s evidence to the contrary. NPR reported:
President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. has reduced petty property crimes, but has had little to no effect on violent crime, despite the high cost to taxpayers, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Niskanen Center.
The study’s findings were published just weeks after
by Steve Benen | Jun 4, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Criminal Justice, Maddowblog, News, Politics
Donald Trump has made no effort to hide his contempt for John Bolton, who served as the president’s White House national security adviser in his first term, and his desire to see Bolton punished for becoming a Trump critic.
With this in mind, the president will likely be thrilled with the latest developments in Bolton’s criminal case: MS NOW’s Ken Dilianian and Carol Leonnig report, citing two people familiar with the matter, that Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information contained in a private diary entry.
The plea deal calls for up to 60 months in jail and a $2.25 million fine, according to the sources. It would resolve a massive indictment that threatened Bolton with millions of dollars in legal fees and decades in prison. CNN was first to report on the plea deal.
The apparent resolution of the Bolton case appears to be very similar to what happened with former CIA Director and retired Gen. David Petraeus, who also pleaded guilty in 2015 to a single count of retaining classified information for a diary that was shown to a co-author, reported MS NOW’s Dilanian and Leonnig.
The difference, however, is that Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, while Bolton appears poised to admit to a felony.
The path to this point has been rocky and circuitous. Bolton, after having served at the president’s side for a year and a half, warned the public during the 2024 election cycle that Trump was “unfit to be president.” The Republican responded with an endless stream of insults and complaints about his former aide.
At one point, Trump even published an item
