Confirmation Hearing Turns Into Legal Showdown

A federal judge ruled that Trump’s $10 billion Internal Revenue Service lawsuit was filed “for an improper purpose” — and referred Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to bar disciplinary boards — even as Blanche faced explosive questioning from Sen. Adam Schiff at his Senate confirmation hearing.

Story Highlights

Blanche defended the IRS settlement as a standard resolution of past audits, denying it grants future tax immunity to Trump or his family.
A signed addendum permanently bars the Internal Revenue Service from pursuing claims tied to tax returns filed before May 19, 2026 — language the settlement itself calls “FOREVER BARRED.”
A federal judge called the lawsuit an attempt to “manipulate the judicial process” and referred Blanche to attorney disciplinary boards.
Blanche declared the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” dead, saying no money was ever transferred and no commissioners were appointed.

Blanche Defends the IRS Deal Under Fire

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche pushed back hard against Sen. Adam Schiff’s attacks on the Internal Revenue Service settlement. Blanche told the committee the deal is “not immunity” and is “nothing that gives any sort of immunity in the future to the president or his family or his organizations.” He called it a standard resolution of past audits, saying settlements like this one “are done regularly and not unique.”

Schiff pressed Blanche on a key contradiction. The settlement addendum Blanche signed states the Internal Revenue Service is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from pursuing claims tied to tax returns filed before the settlement date. Blanche also admitted he did not draft that language and does not know who wrote it, saying, “I don’t know the person that actually typed it.” That answer raised serious questions about who was actually running the show inside the Department of Justice.

A Judge Steps In — and It Gets Worse

A federal judge in Florida issued a scathing ruling, saying Trump filed the $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service “for an improper purpose” — to create the appearance of “judicial legitimacy for a settlement that had no viable basis in law or fact.” The judge referred Blanche and another top Department of Justice official to attorney disciplinary boards in New York and Washington, D.C., where ethics complaints against them were already pending. That is a serious step, and it signals the court’s deep distrust of how this deal was handled.

The court also issued a preliminary injunction requiring Blanche to submit written declarations under penalty of perjury confirming the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund is dead. Blanche told the Senate the fund is not moving forward — “no money went from the Treasury to any other account, there’s no commissioners” — but the court clearly wanted that on the record legally, not just verbally.

Schiff’s Motives Are Worth Watching Too

Schiff came into the hearing loaded for bear, but his own record deserves scrutiny. He was preemptively pardoned by former President Biden — an admission, whether Biden intended it that way or not, that Schiff faced real legal exposure. Schiff also introduced the “Corruption Clawback Act” to recover taxpayer money from the settlement, and co-sponsored legislation to block the Anti-Weaponization Fund. This is a senator with a political stake in making Blanche look corrupt.

🚨BREAKING: This is the unearthed video Senator Adam Schiff repeatedly demanded Todd Blanche to answer for during today’s hearing.

Blanche literally ADMITS he fired DOJ attorneys who prosecuted Trump, his own client – a staggering and obvious breach of ethics. https://t.co/eEcIE58bg1 pic.twitter.com/3frLmxINKs

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) July 16, 2026

That said, the facts here do create real problems for Blanche — and by extension, the Trump administration. Blanche said he recused himself from Trump-related matters, but he confirmed he did not recuse himself when the Department of Justice moved to vacate convictions of 12 Proud Boys and Oath Keepers connected to January 6. He also made statements at a Conservative Political Action Conference taking credit for firing prosecutors who had investigated Trump, then denied involvement in those firings under oath. Those contradictions are not Schiff’s invention — they are on the record. The administration would be better served by getting ahead of these inconsistencies than letting Democrats own the narrative.