Todd Blanche Is Still Donald Trump’s Personal Lawyer
When I was assigned to serve as the spokesman for Special Counsel Jack Smith, one of my responsibilities was to attend public court hearings for the two criminal cases against Donald Trump.
Todd Blanche was Trump’s attorney for both cases, and I spent many hours watching him argue in defense of his client before judges in Washington, D.C., and Florida.
He was a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and you could tell. He understood Justice Department protocols and procedures, and he would often use that knowledge to raise issues for the court to address — things that someone less steeped in the institution would not have known to raise.
He exemplified the very definition of a zealous advocate: an attorney who gives complete and undivided loyalty to his client and devotes his entire energies to protecting the client’s interests.
That undivided loyalty, however, has never changed.
Blanche has never stopped acting as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Since Watergate, every attorney general has promoted policies that protected the department’s criminal and civil law enforcement decisions from partisan influences at the White House — whether real or perceived, direct or indirect.
Pam Bondi broke that tradition. And Blanche has embraced the White House even more than she did.
His fealty appears to have no bounds — even saying that Americans should be “happy” that Trump is so involved in Justice Department matters. He said that if the president were to nominate someone else to be attorney general, he would answer, “Thank you very much. I love you, sir.”
Blanche knows that the president didn’t fire Bondi as part of a much-needed course-correction; he axed her because she didn’t go far enough.
Since he became acting attorney general on April 2, he has been intent on proving that he is willing to go as far as the president wants him to go.
He has used his position at DOJ to enter a corrupt deal with the president and his family, advance vindictive prosecutions, fire career employees, and attack the judiciary.
He has taken dramatic steps to erase the history of the attack of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Under his authority, the Justice Department moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Justice Department deleted press releases about Jan. 6 rioters from its website, calling the press releases of guilty pleas, trial convictions, and court sentences “partisan propaganda.”
He oversaw the establishment of a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” following a settlement with Trump in which Trump agreed to drop his frivolous lawsuit against the IRS over leaked tax returns. And he personally signed an addendum expanding the Trump v. IRS settlement to bar the IRS from conducting tax audits of Trump, his family, and his company for past tax returns. Though he now asserts the anti-weaponization fund is dead, the addendum still stands, and he appears to still be considering other ways to pay Jan. 6 insurrectionists, saying that the reasons for the fund remain as important as they were before.
Blanche has expedited investigations into Trump’s targets.
Under his authority, DOJ secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey (again), an adviser to Anthony Fauci, and the Southern Poverty Law Center — with reports that his office ordered Alabama prosecutors to “rush through” the SPLC indictment, despite concerns about the strength of the case.
He hired and immediately installed Trump loyalist Joseph DiGenova to lead the investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan. The lead career prosecutor previously handling the case was removed after she expressed doubts about its validity. And now Kurt Olsen, a White House official who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election results, has joined that same office as a senior attorney.
Blanche has also carried on a practice he honed as Trump’s personal lawyer: adopting Trump’s combative rhetoric. Court filings have taken on Trump’s distinct online voice, such as accusing a historic preservationist group of suffering from “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” This partisan, unprofessional messaging is anathema to DOJ’s longstanding institutional norms.
He also heeded Trump’s call to crack down on the press, overseeing expanded investigations into media leaks, including taking the rare step of issuing subpoenas for the records of journalists and even investigating those behind an embarrassing Atlantic profile of Kash Patel.
With Blanche as acting attorney general, the Justice Department inserted itself into Trump’s personal litigation, asking the Supreme Court if the Justice Department can handle Trump’s appeal of the defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll. That wasn’t enough. The department is also reportedly opening a criminal inquiry into matters related to Carroll’s civil lawsuit against Trump. (A source insists Blanche is recused from this inquiry.)
These are just a few examples of a larger list that Justice Connection compiled of Blanche’s actions at the Justice Department that “harmed the department’s workforce, advanced the politicization of the department, undermined the rule of law, and threatened public safety.”
As I reflect on what Blanche has done through his tenure overseeing the Justice Department, I keep going back to what I witnessed in the courtrooms in D.C. and Florida.
At the beginning of each hearing, counsel would introduce themselves to the presiding judge.
Blanche would stand, and say, “Your honor, Todd Blanche on behalf of the defendant, Donald Trump.”
The prosecutor would then stand, and say, “Your honor,” his or her name, “on behalf of the United States.”
That distinction matters.
Federal prosecutors represent much more than one man, even if that man is the president. They represent us. The people of the United States. They understand that we are, as John Adams advocated, a government of laws, not of men.
Blanche has yet to demonstrate he understands that difference.
His unwavering fealty to the president and destruction of institutional norms should disqualify him from leading the only agency with its foundational virtue in its name.
Peter Carr is the communications director for Justice Connection, a network of Justice Department alumni mobilizing to support its apolitical workforce. He served as a government spokesman for nearly 25 years, with more than 15 at the Justice Department.
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