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CNN analyst Andrew McCabe on Tuesday pointed out that the Department of Justice never responded to President Donald Trump's IRS lawsuit — and how that could impact Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination.

The former deputy director of the FBI told CNN anchor Kasie Hunt that, as Blanche's nomination remains in limbo ahead of Thursday's vote, further questions about Trump's former personal attorney have come to light.

"Let's remember, there essentially was never really a true lawsuit here," McCabe said. "The president sued the IRS for $10 billion. The Department of Justice never even answered the complaint. So, there were never two opposing parties. The Justice Department never stood up and defended the United States in the way that it did in every other suit brought by the same leak from the same person."

This was unusual, McCabe explained.

"And because of that oddity, that's a very suspicious decision on the part of people like Todd Blanche and others," he said. "The lack of a true controversy meant that the entire thing was about to get dismissed. Before that could happen, they entered into these agreements. One of them, of course, created the weaponization fund, and the second one essentially granted complete immunity forever to Donald Trump, his family members and businesses."

McCabe described the situation further.

"It was basically a giveaway from the Department of Justice to the president," McCabe said. "How this thing stands or was ever conceived — I have no idea. I've been around many, many settlements of criminal matters, some of which involved IRS criminal matters, and have never seen any language like this. I think it's absolutely unprecedented and an incredibly bad idea."

The IRS settlement became a sticking point for some Republican senators during Blanche's confirmation hearing. On Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said there is no deal on Blanche's confirmation because of the settlement and the so-called anti-weaponization fund, Politico reported.

President Donald Trump has made America less safe by punching a hole in the nation's ability to defend against a certain kind of attack from Iran, MS NOW's Rachel Maddow warned on Monday, and they're already taking advantage.

Maddow opened by mentioning the devastating wildfires in Spokane, Washington, and a surprising way that Trump allowed Iran to sabotage efforts to fight them.

"We're watching those fires and those evacuations tonight after what has been a terrible day in Eastern Washington State," said Maddow. Worse still, "in seven different states today, local water systems now know they have been hacked into, in a mass cyberattack that is being attributed to Iran."

"You may recall that the Trump administration dismantled or radically scaled back cybersecurity capabilities within the federal government, including inexplicably firing the head of Cyber Command in the U.S. military," said Maddow. "Well, now, local water supplies again in seven states have been hacked into by what appears to have been a foreign adversary."

"This is not a drill!" said Maddow. "This is something that is happening right now and in real life."

Trump originally blamed the attack on Minnesota's Democratic governor, Maddow noted, but at this point "it is at least seven states. And so definitely, by definition, it is not Minnesota's fault."

The upshot, Maddow said, is that Trump has a "strange inability to process this kind of information, to even seemingly understand this kind of attack," and there's no way to know whether America "is even capable of mounting a defense and a response to this kind of attack, because of the way Trump deliberately degraded our cyber capabilities."

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