Donald Trump’s new attorney general made it clear Sunday: He will operate the Department of Justice in conjunction with the White House, affirming that America’s top law enforcement agency will function as an arm of the presidency.
Todd Blanche laid out his vision for the agency as he sat down for a his first interview as attorney general Sunday with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. During the conversation he pledged not to be a “yes man”, but denied that the Justice Department was ever intended to act independently of the White House.
“Can you pledge that the Justice Department will act independently of the White House?” asked the NBC host. Blanche responded: “No, I am not going to pledge that — and no Attorney General should ever pledge that.”
He was also asked directly if he would take Trump’s opinions into consideration on matters such as determining whether an abandoned prosecution should be revived, to which he said yes.
“Will I take the president of the United States’ view on something into consideration? Yes. Of course. And I hope every attorney general in history would not answer that question differently,” said Blanche.
open image in galleryBut he denied that the president would ever issue a direct order demanding that a certain person face prosecution, something that has already at least appeared to have occurred once in public view, as a direct message to Blanche’s predecessor Pam Bondi was accidentally published by the president as a post on his Truth Social account last year.
That message directed Bondi to begin prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey, among others.
“The president does not expect any of his leaders, including me, to just say yes to him no matter what he says,” Blanche claimed. “There’s this extraordinarily false narrative that the president wakes up in the morning and calls me and says, ‘Todd, go prosecute x or y.’ He does not do that. He has never done that. He will never do that.”
open image in galleryThe attorney general was confirmed to his position just before the Senate left for recess earlier this month. His confirmation process was fraught, with several Republican senators threatening to hold up the vote or even oppose his nomination if Blanche and the Justice Department could not guarantee, in writing, that an effort by the administration to establish a nearly $1.8 billion fund to reward persons supposedly targeted by “politicized” prosecutions was over.
Blanche had refused to put in writing that the “slush fund” was dead, but continued to insist it would not be used. The fund was created as part of Trump’s settlement with the IRS over a lawsuit.
Blanche eventually did so, but only after Trump threatened to pull his nomination and work through other means to see the fund established. GOP senators and their Democratic adversaries blasted the “slush fund.”
Blanche was confirmed over objections from several Republican senators, including North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, that the department was being increasingly weaponized by the White House under his leadership.
Those Republicans — with the exception of Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski — voted for Blanche in the end, while lamenting that the agency had been used by Trump to direct unsuccessful but time-consuming and costly legal fights against the president’s personal political enemies, including Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former Trump administration official John Bolton.
open image in galleryOn Sunday, Blanche was asked about the fund and if January 6 rioters could still be paid.
“Anyone who sues the federal government could get paid,” Blanche said.
The interview also touched on several Trump initiatives, including the president’s desire to reshape American election policy. The attorney general insisted that the agency’s efforts to force states to turn over voter rolls would continue, another DOJ effort that has seen little success but continues due to its status as one of the president’s priorities.
“No, we’re not going to stop. Election integrity is something that President Trump ran on, and the American people elected him,” Blanche said.