Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) had to answer for comments made by Attorney General Todd Blanche a week after the GOP senator confirmed him.
Cassidy cast the decisive vote to confirm Blanche as Trump’s Attorney General and gave a speech where he assured his constituents he was making the right choice despite mixed feelings about confirming Trump’s former personal lawyer. But a week later, Cassidy was confronted during an appearance on CNN with a clip of Blanche endorsing Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for governor of New York.
Blanche said that Blakeman was “doing everything we need him to do to back the blue.”
Blanche made the endorsement during a Friday speech in Garden City, New York, where he spoke alongside President Donald Trump. Critics quickly called it out as a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits most executive appointees from partisan political activity.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper played a clip from the speech for Cassidy to watch.
“You had misgivings before you voted to confirm him as Attorney General,” Tapper told Cassidy. “We’re just a few months from the midterms. No Democrats spoke at the rally. A lot of Democrats considered it to be overtly political.”
Tapper asked, “Do you think it’s appropriate for the Attorney General of the United States to be participating in an event like that 81 days before the midterms?”
Cassidy went silent for a while after Tapper’s question and then danced around it.
“All I saw was that little snippet,” Cassidy said. “So I’m going to reserve comment because I was not aware of that before this.”
Cassidy then fell back to defending the GOP and Blanche when it comes to law enforcement, even though he didn’t explain in what sense.
“I will say that Republicans are very strong on law enforcement,” Cassidy said. “And Todd Blanche has been strong on law enforcement.”
Then he repeated, “But, Jake, with all due respect, I had never heard anything about that rally until this very minute, so I’ll reserve comment on that.”
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