Sheldon Whitehouse: Todd Blanche Should Not Be Confirmed

The acting attorney general has made the Department of Justice into a disgrace.

By Sheldon Whitehouse

The MAGA Department of Justice is a disgrace. More than 10,000 lawyers have fled or been forced out, often after being asked to carry out illegal or unethical orders. Todd Blanche is at the center of the rot. If he becomes the next attorney general, Blanche — once Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney — will wield the Department of Justice against the president’s personal and political enemies, at the expense of the American people.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi blamed Blanche for the department’s disastrous handling of everything related to Jeffrey Epstein. Blanche appears to have secured cushy treatment for a convicted sex offender, Ghislaine Maxwell, in exchange for withholding damaging information about Epstein and Donald Trump. When Trump’s lewd birthday book note to Epstein — arranged by Maxwell — surfaced, Blanche flew down to personally talk to her. After she said favorable things about Trump for Blanche to publish, she was transferred to a more comfortable minimum-security prison camp.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche at an April news conference. (C-SPAN)

Blanche oversaw the department’s abysmal release of the Trump/Epstein files. The redactions were a mess, exposing victims’ identifying information. Serious, credible allegations against Trump were withheld. After stellar reporting by journalists discovered DOJ’s omissions, DOJ released some of the files about the Trump allegations. But even now, files are still being held back.

Blanche personally signed and approved Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for payouts to Trump’s friends, supporters, and violent rioters. Attached to the slush fund was blanket amnesty for any tax crimes carried out by Trump, his family members, and his businesses — a get-out-of-jail-free card, signed only by Blanche.

This scheme is so rotten that a Florida federal judge has opened an inquiry into whether DOJ committed “fraud on the court,” an allegation unprecedented in DOJ history. Thirty-five former federal judges signed a filing saying that “corruption of the judicial process is exactly what happened here” through an “unprecedentedly fraudulent scheme.” The judge called the allegations “grievous” and invited a response — which DOJ failed to provide. Credible allegations of fraud on the court are as bad as it gets for attorney misconduct, and they’re stacked on charges elsewhere against Blanche’s DOJ for contempt, malicious and vindictive prosecution, and dishonesty to courts.

Judges everywhere have had enough of the Blanche DOJ’s lies and scheming. Traditionally, the government has enjoyed what’s called a “presumption of regularity” — judges safely assume DOJ lawyers are telling the truth. Decades of honorable government lawyering built that trust; Blanche’s MAGA DOJ has singlehandedly destroyed it. Judges — even those appointed by Trump — are raising red flags, describing DOJ arguments as “pretextual,” “disingenuous,” “bad faith,” “shoddy,” and “unconscionable.” When I was U.S. attorney, any such term used by a judge about our conduct would have prompted action; with Blanche in charge, they’re commonplace. One Trump-appointed judge even described a “concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it.”

This mischief and buffoonery have consequences — for the DOJ as an institution, for lawyers who work there, and for the safety of the American people. Cases against criminals have been jeopardized by DOJ’s illegal stunt to install radical, temporary U.S. attorneys instead of going through normal advice and consent. Cases have been lost because of their incompetence and misconduct. Grand juries have stopped trusting DOJ prosecutors and are refusing to deliver ludicrous indictments against people targeted by Blanche and his minions.

Across the country, DOJ attorneys are being held in contempt or investigated for misconduct. There have been two referrals for misconduct in my state of Rhode Island in recent weeks. In one instance, the DOJ and ICE withheld information from the court about an outstanding arrest warrant, set up the judge to release the allegedly violent offender, and then publicly slammed the judge for releasing him.

Blanche’s DOJ is heaping embarrassments upon itself. The department’s Office of Legal Counsel provided absurd opinions to allow Trump to do as he pleases, like letting him accept the Qatari jet. The department seized voting ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, in an apparent attempt to sow doubt about or to interfere in our elections. The DOJ opened an investigation into Renee Good rather than the agent who killed her in Minnesota.

Under every other administration, positions at the Department of Justice were considered among the most prestigious in the country. Under Blanche, the DOJ has to offer hiring bonuses and lower its standards, as lawyers are asked to put their bar licenses at risk or exit.

There is much more, but Blanche’s obstruction of congressional oversight keeps mischief hidden. What of the saga of Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove? What of the effort by 101 judges to have Blanche disbarred? What of the MAGA DOJ’s contempt of court? What of the Office of Professional Responsibility? What of political decisions in antitrust cases?

Republican senators who vote to confirm Blanche are deluding themselves if they believe he will do anything but accelerate the weaponization of the justice system. They will own his excesses, both the covered-up ones and the ones yet to come. As Sir Thomas More asked of William Roper in the film A Man for All Seasons, “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?” A government of laws is the opposite of what Blanche wants; he wants all the laws flat before Trump.

Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, represents Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate, where he sits on the Judiciary Committee.

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