During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on June 10 Sen. Richard Blumenthal had seen enough. Faced with a panel of Trump judicial nominees who couldn’t bring themselves to answer basic factual questions about the 2020 election and January 6th, the Connecticut Democrat made clear exactly what he thought it meant for their fitness to serve.
Blumenthal opened by setting the tone before a single question was asked.
“I want to make clear about the questions I’m going to ask you,” the Connecticut Democrat told the committee. “They’re not political theater. They’re not being clever.”
“These issues are a matter of right and wrong,” he continued. “Attacking the Capitol is wrong. Lying about whether it happened is wrong. Pardoning people who attack the Capitol is wrong.”
He then went down the line. When he asked nominee Michael C. Martin who won the 2020 election, Martin stayed carefully inside the lines.
“As a matter of law, Joe Biden was the winner of the 2020 election,” Martin said.
But when Blumenthal pushed further, asking Martin directly who got more popular votes, Martin retreated. “My focus as a judicial nominee is on the law,” he said.
Nominee Antonio M. Pozos followed the same playbook. When pressed on whether the Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6, 2021, Pozos acknowledged seeing videos of “violence and trespass” but stopped short of calling it what it was. “You’re going to stick with that script?” Blumenthal asked.
“Senator, I would hesitate to characterize what occurred,” Pozos said.
Blumenthal didn’t let it pass. “I hesitate to tell the truth here,” he shot back before quickly moving on.
Nominee Angela Veronica Colmenero wasn’t any different. When Blumenthal asked her point blank who won more votes among the American people, she kept circling back to the same answer. “As a matter of law, Joe Biden won the 2020 election,” she repeated.
Blumenthal had heard enough, interrupting before she could continue. “Like your other nominees, you’re going to adopt the script, the new script, the new hedge, the new White House pre-negotiated script.”
Moments later he called it exactly what he believed it was.
“Let me just be absolutely clear … you have a new script, a new pre-negotiated effort to thread the needle, avoid the question because the president refuses to acknowledge that he lost” he said. “You are protecting the lie by failing to acknowledge the truth, and it all goes to your independence.”
He closed with a direct warning to every nominee sitting at the table.
“If you’re unwilling to show us that you’re independent of the president at this early stage of your service, you disqualify yourself as judicial nominees.”
