U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) speaks during the second day of Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for U.S. Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 16, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
A former attorney in the Department of Justice slapped some GOP senators with damning allegations during a new podcast interview on Sunday.
Liz Oyer, the former pardon attorney for the Trump administration, told Bill Kristol of The Bulwark on a new episode of "Bulwark on Sunday" that she has been receiving death threats since she spoke out against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche last week during his confirmation hearing. Oyer described the behavior of some GOP senators, such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Eric Schmitt (R-MO), as "vitriolic" and "dangerous," and shared how they impacted her son, who was in attendance.
"The attacks were just so vitriolic and disingenuous that my 17-year-old son, who was with me at the hearing, said to me afterward, 'They made it sound like you murdered those people,' and he was genuinely really upset. He's a young adult. He's going to be a senior in high school. Just to hear the way that two United States senators were talking about the issue and talking about me and my role in it, I think it was very confusing to him how that could be presented in that light."
Oyer told senators during the hearing that Blanche was unqualified for the Attorney General position that President Donald Trump nominated him for, and that Blanche has used "law enforcement powers to pursue petty grudges harbored by the president."
In response, senators like Hawley and Schmitt began attacking Oyer for some of the pardon decisions she had signed off on.
"It really was just so disingenuous, and actually it's really dangerous," Oyer said. "That's the other thing that bothers me about it. I've literally been getting death threats since that happened."
"It takes a toll the way that this political discourse is escalating under Donald Trump and people like Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt egging it on," she continued. "It makes it impossible to have a legitimate conversation about issues without putting yourself and your family at risk."