Raw Story93%
Top senator slams Todd Blanche's 'baloney' excuse on Epstein: 'It's embarrassing' 82%
By Matthew Chapman86%
7/16/2026, 1:01:14 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Recency Bias, Hasty Generalization, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 61.3% saturation with 179 hits. Analysis detected 742 faulty-reasoning hits from 292 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 74.9% and a BS Rank of 82% (3,011 of 16,550 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 81.80% of the article peer group.
Sen.
Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Thursday morning took a swipe at acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for claiming at his confirmation hearing that he couldn't meet with Epstein survivors because they had lawyered up.
Durbin, in a conversation with CNN anchor John Berman, argued Blanche had no business leading the Department of Justice and called his excuse "baloney."
"It's not unusual for a person to have a lawyer by their side, and it doesn't stop him from asking some basic questions," said Durbin.
"I want to tell you, they have a lot to say, and they have the courage to say it.
And it's embarrassing that the man who wants to be attorney general of the United States refuses."
Durbin also slammed President Donald Trump for his ongoing obsession with 2020 election conspiracy theories, which are expected to make up a significant part of his upcoming public address Thursday night.
"We have seen so many examples of this president's craziness when it comes to the 2020 election," said Durbin.
"It reached the point that his nominees for federal judgeships looking for lifetime appointments have to continue the charade that the Big Lie is true."
This dig arrived one day after Jay Clayton, Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, refused multiple times to say who won the 2020 election during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Durbin vented about it at length to Berman.
"Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden by 7 million votes," he said.
"Period.
Nothing that he has produced since then argues otherwise.
He's fixated in his mind that he's never lost an election.
And we're going to hear more of that craziness tonight."
Analysis
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