'Extraordinarily obnoxious': 5 explosive moments from Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing was filled with fiery exchanges, emotional testimonies, and tense back and forths. From intense grillings to outside witnesses breaking down in tears, here are the five most shocking moments. In one fiery moment, Blanche appeared to be ticked off by a question from Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse over the conduct of FBI Director Kash Patel, who works under the DOJ. How long do you intend to put up with that Kash Patel character? Are you good with his airplane jaunts? Are you confident he's not drinking on the job? Are you sure none of his travel is a pretext for vacation activities like snorkeling, Olympics, and visiting girlfriends? Are you sure he knows what he's doing? Do you vouch for him? Are you willing to look at whether he lied to this committee? That's an extraordinarily obnoxious question, Senator, and I have full faith in Director Patel and the work that he's doing every day. Great, you've got to own that. In another heated exchange, Senator Adam Schiff suggested that the former prosecutor's allegiance has shifted and now lies with Trump rather than the Department of Justice. What I don't understand, Todd Blanche, what happened to the Todd Blanche who was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York? What happened to the prosecutor people had respect for? What happened to the prosecutor who once respected the rule of law? What happened to the prosecutor who said that there wouldn't be a whiff of political partisanship and then prosecutes the president's enemies over seashells, cases, over making a video stating the plain law and constitution? What happened to the Todd Blanche of the Southern District of New York that could convert him into you, someone willing to say the president has both the right and the duty to prosecute his political enemies? I cannot imagine the Todd Blanche of the old days would have ever done that. What happened to you, Todd Blanche? You ask me what happened to Todd Blanche? I am still here. I am the same exact person I was when I was a federal prosecutor in the SDNY, which is do the right thing and do everything you can to keep communities safe. One outside witness, angel mother Jennifer Boss, whose daughter was murdered by an illegal immigrant, emotionally delivered heartbreaking testimony in support of Blanche's confirmation. She was stuffed upside down in a garbage can for 51 days, soaking in bleach. This is why victims don't care about partisan victories. We care whether the dangerous criminals and drug traffickers and cartels are stopped before another loved one is buried and another family's life shattered. In another fierce moment, Republican Senator Josh Hawley bluntly expressed his astonishment that Democrats called former pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer to the Senate Judiciary Committee as a witness against Blanche. And you recommended clemency for this individual and now he'll live his life at the expense of taxpayers because you substituted your judgment for that of the American judicial system, jury, judges, the whole lot, and yet you're here to tell us that you're somehow a victim? I don't think so, Ms. Oyer. I think your judgment is astoundingly terrible. Another emotional outside witness testimony saw Jeffrey Epstein survivor Danny Bensky break down in tears as she admonished Blanche and the DOJ for releasing identifying information of victims in case files related to the late pedophile. Todd Blanche has been at the helm of the release of nude images of survivors, the outing of Jane Doe's, and the exposure of more than 100 victims identifying information and documents describing horrific acts of abuse, including my own. They were available not only for the entire world to see, but my child, my students, my friends, my employers, my colleagues, and my family. It was humiliating. Worse, my FBI 302 exposed a Jane Doe who had fought for decades to conceal her identity. It's been absolutely devastating. Outing survivors causes real and irrevocable harm while coping with our emotional distress and psychological trauma. Blanche apologized for redaction errors during his testimony on the first day of hearings. The earliest possible vote on Blanche's nomination is in two weeks.