After Donald Trump ousted Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general in April, he picked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — who is also his former personal defense attorney — to fill in as acting attorney general. Now, Blanche is preparing for confirmation hearings to become U.S. attorney general and lead the Justice Department.
Blanche has said that he has a “continuing duty of loyalty” to Trump. The attorney general should be loyal to the Constitution, not the president, but Blanche’s allegiance to Trump — and the actions he’s already taken at DOJ — raise serious concerns. As acting AG, Blanche was central to the planning for Trump’s controversial $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were wrongly investigated by the Biden administration. He also announced the prosecutions of the Southern Poverty Law Center and James Comey.
Blanche has also been involved in the battle over the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Despite his clear conflict of interest, he was given the authority to decide which presidential records from Trump’s first administration are eligible for release under the PRA. That was before DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel declared that the Trump administration does not need to adhere to the PRA at all — an unconstitutional claim that we are challenging in court.
If he is confirmed as attorney general, Blanche will have even more power at DOJ. That’s why, on Friday, we filed new Freedom of Information Act requests for Blanche’s communications that will shed light on whether he is using his power to shield the president from investigations — specifically DOJ’s review of the Epstein files and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his federal investigation into Trump. Those documents could provide important details about Blanche’s actions and intentions at DOJ, and the public should have access to them before his confirmation vote.
