Analysis: Blanche Faces Rocky Road to Confirmation, Bolton to Cop Plea on Classified Info 6-5-26
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42 segmentsHanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at SpinQuest. Over a thousand games including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Entertain clients, reward employees, or enjoy a first-class race weekend with VIR's premium MSA hospitality experiences. August 21st through 23rd, enjoy exclusive viewing areas, premium amenities, food and beverage options, and access that puts you close to the action. Whether for business or pleasure, elevate your weekend at Virginia International Raceway. Explore and upgrade your tickets at VIRVIP.net. Good morning. This is the Hampshire today. I am Chris Ryan. I appreciate joining us for the show. One of the major stories we're following for you this morning is Todd Blanche, the president's personal attorney and acting attorney general, has been nominated by President Trump to serve full time as. Attorney General. Let's get the latest on that from Fox's Tony J. Powers. During a dinner at the White House, President Trump announced plans to formally nominate Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General. I'm instructing Dan and everybody else that's involved in that very complicated process, which is going to go, I think, very quickly, that we are going to make him permanent Attorney General. Todd Blanche is Trump's former personal lawyer who represented him during his hush money trial in 2024, in which Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts. The president's choice of Todd Blanche, who was the deputy to Attorney General Pam Bondi before she was fired from the job, comes amid criticism of Todd Blanche over the rollout of a settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the IRS that included a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. Tanya J. Powers. Fox News. Todd Blanche also appears to be somewhat personally responsible for the new digs that Ghislaine Maxwell find yourself in, going from high security prison to a prison that allows her much more freedom after meeting with Todd Blanche. Joining us right now on the HRC, your neighbor credit union guest line, Corky Messner, providing some legal analysis here on the program. Good morning, Cork. Good morning, Chris. How are you? I'm well. I appreciate joining us for the show. So what do you see here with the president's announcement that Todd Blanche will be Attorney General? Well, you know, one thing, I was talking to a friend of mine last week who was involved in an organization. years ago represented by Todd Blanche and and my friend told me that Todd Blanche was clearly a liberal democrat back then so he's gone through some kind of transformation uh i think this nomination is going to be very difficult to get through the seven especially given what's happened with Bill Cassidy and cron and and it it it
It makes me wonder what Trump is thinking because I don't think this thing's going to get through, Chris. And Todd Blanche is acting in ways that are clearly focused on doing what's best for Donald Trump and not what's best for the American people. And the Attorney General's job is to do what's best for the American people. And one of the things that concerns me, one of the many things that concerns me about all this stuff is that the time and resources and energy put into the slush fund, the ballroom, all these other things takes away from the important issues that are going on in the United States, that the Department of Justice ought to be chasing down some bad, bad people. and not wasting so much time on these trivial Trump-centric manners that I think this nomination is in trouble from the beginning. And it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Yeah, I'm interested to see as well if he has the votes. And you look to somebody like Susan Collins, right? What is she going to do on this? Is she going to support Todd Blanche, given the Senate race up in Maine? John Cornyn is an interesting person to watch as well because he obviously feels jaded by Trump, I think at this point, but has largely been institutionalist and has stuck with party leadership. Is he going to, you know, go in his own direction on this or do what? John Thune wants him to do. And also you mentioned Bill Cassidy. We know where Thom Tillis is going to probably land on this. Rand Paul. I mean, there's a lot of people that on the Republican side that may vote against this. And then John Fetterman, it may vote for it as a Democrat. So I think that the nomination is is deeply... troubled, to say the least, but we've also seen folks get through that probably we wouldn't have expected to in the past, but we're at a different point of the Trump presidency. You mentioned what is he thinking on this? It seems that he's just going to do what he wants at this point, that is President Trump, regardless of how the outcome may be, regards with the outcome may be. You think about the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center situation, right? Just threw his name on there. and didn't really think of the fact that, hey, they might take my name off, and that's going to be kind of embarrassing, right? I mean, it just doesn't seem like there's, it just seems like he's going to do what he's going to do, and he has surrounded himself with people that are going to say, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And Chris, you know, that is a very concerning situation. for this country and the American people. And I think you're right. I think Trump just does what he wants to do. And, you know, the most, in my opinion, the most significant example of the risk of that approach is Iran. I think there's just no question that Trump was advised.
Iran would close the strait of her moves. Trump was advised that Iran would attack the oil facilities of the other Gulf countries. And he went ahead and attacked Iran anyway. And I think it's because of what you're saying, that Trump's going to do what Trump wants to do, no matter, you know, who told, who, who advises him of adverse consequences. And he's got a lot of people around them that's going to cheer more no matter what he decides. Yeah, on Iran for a second, this was pretty telling yesterday. This is the Peter Ducey report from the White House about the enriched uranium and why President Trump did not go in and have special ops and forces go in to get the enriched uranium. We're going to win on paper. Or we're going to win military. What's the way of the other? Peace talks with Iran hinge on the Islamic Republic giving up enriched uranium, something President Trump now says he could have taken by force months ago, but didn't, concerned about the likelihood of a successful U.S. commando raid. I didn't want to be Jimmy Carter. I didn't feel like being Jimmy Carter. We would have been, Peter, we would have been there for a period of from a week to two weeks. We would have gotten it. But I said, I don't like the idea of that. So he was concerned, obviously, about, you know, the potential loss of life, which is something the president should weigh. But you wonder how the initial operation not going as planned, Ron taking over control of the street of Hormuz, and how that kind of set his thinking in regard to something like... reopening the Strait of Hormuz via military force, taking over Carg Island, which was discussed. And this situation, when it comes to getting the enriched uranium, and if you're going to conduct this military operation, you better come out of it with a better deal and a better conclusion than you had at the start. Yeah, yeah, the, this idea that it would be easy to go in and grab that uranium is just silly. You know, it is under rubble. you know, the force that it would take to do that and the equipment that it would take to do that, it would be very, very difficult and likely result in many, many, many casualties. And this war is unpopular now. We've lost 13 brave souls. And if you start paling those numbers up, this war will become extremely unpopular. And I think...
You know, this is one of the situations where Trump's just making stuff up that we could go in and get it quickly. It's just not true. Corky Mester joins us on the HRC, your neighbor credit union guest on front some legal analysis here on first Todd Blanche. Now I want to get into John Bolton, who reportedly is about to plead guilty. to one count of retaining classified information. Let's get the latest on that from Jared Halpern at the White House. In a deal with the Justice Department, John Bolton, who served as President Trump's national security advisor during his first term, will plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information. The deal likely means John Bolton will avoid jail time. He was charged with 18 counts of retaining classified information, including journal notes. from his time in government is he prepared to write a memoir. Since serving in the first Trump administration, John Bolton has emerged as a vocal critic of the president's foreign policy. As part of the plea deal, John Bolton also faces a more than $2 million fine at the White House. Jared Halpern, Fox News. So as folks know, John Bolton is a frequent guest here on the New Hampshire Today program has been for many years. Your thoughts on what's happening here? Yeah, I, you know, my understanding is that John Bolton's a pretty wealthy guy. And I think his calculus here is, you know, he can pay to get out from underneath the threat of going to jail and hopefully get Trump off his back. And, and that's what he's doing. I think. people in his position, I think take classified information, whether it's knowingly or not knowingly. And I think it's an opportunity for him to pay to get out of jail free card. And that's what's going on here. And from his perspective, it's probably a good decision. You know, and not be messing with defending a criminal case for years. Yeah, I think that for him, obviously, it makes sense if you have the money and you can pay $2 million, which I believe was actually somewhere around the advance that he got for writing the book, which is interesting in itself. That number kind of lines up, if in fact I'm correct on that. And basically what he did here was that he took notes and he took classified information and sent it allegedly to... family members in order to retain it and to write his memoir. And this is not something that was new. It was known at the time when the Trump administration was trying to block him from publishing the book. The judge indicated it appeared in that situation that there was perhaps a criminality here, but the book could not be stopped, basically.
And to me, for John Bolton, the hypocrisy of his past statements in regard to Trump, Biden, he said that if he had done what Hillary Clinton did in regard to classified information, he'd be in jail. And then to do something that was very similar. That's obviously an issue that he has to answer to in regard to his criticism of other folks. But as you mentioned, this has become unfortunately very commonplace it would appear with President Trump, President Biden, and Hillary Clinton, and I'm sure many others that are not known retaining. classified information. And it doesn't have to be, you know, like President Trump was. So stacking files at Mar-a-Lago or Joe Biden putting classified information back of the Corvette in his garage. It's also what you know in compiling that information. And so I'm sure this is fairly commonplace regardless. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I think there's a certain amount of arrogance among people who serve at high levels of government. And they feel like they're never going to get caught taking that information. And so it happens. And I think people ought to be prosecuted for it. As always, appreciate your time. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Chris. We'll see you. Bye-bye. Corky Messner joining us on the HRCU, your neighbored credit union guest line. I am Chris Ryan. This is Hampshire Today. Meet Bob Minetti. My wife and I just celebrated 45 memorable years together. She and my daughter, Katie, are my anchors. Bob and Wendy spent time fundraising for health care causes. I guess I liked it so much. I decided to become a patient. In 2016, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I assumed that there was no hope for people with my diagnosis. Bob participated in a clinical trial that included cutting edge radiation therapy and surgery. He's been in remission since completion. I'm so glad that I learned about what was possible for me. I'm Keisha Sharp, since losing my mother to pancreatic cancer. I've been working to ensure that everyone facing this diagnosis knows about the immense progress being made. Stand up to Cancer and Lust Garden Foundation are working together to make every person diagnosed into a long-term survivor like Bob. Visit Pancreatic Cancer Collective.org. My name is Rich Jim Jordan. I was in.
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