Several Republican senators challenged the credibility of the testimony of a former Biden Justice Department official during day two of the Todd Blanche confirmation hearing, pointing to the part she played in the clemency granted to 37 death row inmates.Democrats called Elizabeth Oyer, the former U.S.Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice, a nonpolitical position she served from April 2022 until March 2025 when then Deputy Attorney General Blanche fired her, which she argued was politically motivated.While Democrats cast the former pardon attorney as evidence Blanche had politicized the Justice Department, Republicans argued her recommendations to commute the sentences of federal death row inmates undermined her credibility.Blanche, who has served as acting attorney general since April 2, did not publicly disclose the reasoning for Oyer's firing, but she claimed it's because she refused to recommend that actor Mel Gibson, who serves as a special envoy to Hollywood for President Donald Trump, have his gun rights restored.
The Justice Department denied this as the cause for her firing.TRUMP'S AG NOMINEE RACKS UP MASSIVE SUPPORT AHEAD OF CONFIRMATION HEARING: 'REAL RESULTS'In her opening testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, Oyer mentioned Blanche's handling of the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell's reassignment to a lower security prison, as among the main reasons Blanche should not become attorney general."At the end of the day, the priority of this DOJ is protecting powerful men, even when it comes at the expense of vulnerable women," Oyer testified Thursday.But Sens.Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, hammered Oyer over an internal memo from Nov.
4, 2024, in which she recommended that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland advise then-President Joe Biden to consider commuting the 40 remaining federal death sentences.Biden went on to commute the death sentences of 37 of those rec...