ArcaMax

On Wednesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

If the rule of law means anything, the Judiciary Committee should not send Blanche’s name to the Senate for confirmation. And under no circumstances should the Senate confirm Blanche as attorney general.

Blanche, who used to be Trump’s private lawyer, has treated the Justice Department as Trump’s private law firm. He still acts as though Trump — not the United States — is his client.

Consider what Blanche has done for Trump, rather than for the United States.

1. Illegally suppressed the Epstein files

Blanche has conceded that the Department of Justice violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act by making improper redactions in the public release of Jeffrey Epstein’s records but continues to drag his feet. Under Blanche, the department is currently battling lawsuits from journalists and demands from the state of New Mexico to unseal the unredacted documents.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the department to either unredact and release specific files — including emails, potential co-conspirators, and interview notes summarizing allegations against President Trump — or justify why they must remain withheld. But under Blanche’s direction, the department has repeatedly missed or delayed fulfilling orders to unredact the records completely, leading plaintiffs and transparency advocates to accuse Blanche of ongoing noncompliance.

Blanche also personally interviewed Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison, before Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security facility. Minimum-security prisons are generally reserved for inmates with far shorter sentences than Maxwell’s 20 years. Did Blanche make a bargain with her? We don’t know.

2. Prosecuted Trump’s “enemies”

Blanche has assured White House officials that he will move faster and more efficiently against Trump’s targets, and at executing other White House priorities, than did his predecessor, Pam Bondi. Bondi was fired presumably because she didn’t deliver what Trump wanted quickly enough.

At Trump’s insistence, Blanche is moving ahead with investigations into several targets whom Trump regards as enemies — including John O. Brennan, the former CIA director who helped investigate Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Blanche is overseeing the Brennan inquiry, examining whether he lied to Congress in testimony in 2023, and relating to what Trump’s allies have cast as Brennan’s involvement in a “grand conspiracy” by Obama and Biden administration officials to keep Trump out of office each time he ran.

Blanche has also given the green light to inquiries into Cassidy Hutchinson, a young former White House aide who outraged Trump four years ago after she implicated him in the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Under Blanche, prosecutors have also revived a botched attempt to bring charges against James B. Comey, the former FBI director, after a federal judge threw out charges last year that Comey had lied to Congress.

Blanche’s new indictment of Comey is for posting on social media an image of seashells he took while walking on a North Carolina beach. Blanche’s prosecutors are casting it as threatening because the image spelled“86 47” (the number “86” is slang for “getting rid of” someone or something, while “47” refers to Trump). Comey says that he quickly deleted the post as soon as he heard that the numbers were associated with violence.

There appears to be nothing Blanche won’t do that Trump wants done. Blanche is prosecuting the Democratic fundraising organization ActBlue. He’s prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights nonprofit in Alabama. In terms of turning the Department of Justice into the Department of Trump’s Grievances, Bondi was bad, but Blanche is far worse.

3. Sought to erase Jan. 6, 2021

Blanche is also doing Trump’s bidding in seeking to erase from the public record the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Blanche delivered Trump’s pardons to those who were found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Under Blanche’s direction, the Department of Justice has even removed from its website news releases about the criminal cases related to what occurred on that fateful day, calling the information about the prosecutions “partisan propaganda.”

Blanche also signed off on a $1.8 billion fund that could have been funneled to those who stormed Congress as part of the so-called “settlement” agreement between Trump and, well, Trump, after Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service. After lawmakers from both parties criticized the deal, Blanche said, during a June 2 hearing before the House, “We are not moving forward with the fund, period.” But his flat refusal to put his reversal in writing is an indication that he could devise an alternative.

Meanwhile, Blanche has said there’s a “ton of evidence” the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump, though he couldn’t provide a “definitive answer” and has pointed to ongoing investigations in Georgia and Florida as possibly answering the question.

4. Tried to immunize Trump and his family

Blanche personally signed — and was the only name on — the “settlement” document that would immunize Trump and his family from all future prosecutions. The breadth of this agreement is staggering. It prohibits the U.S. government from looking into any of the corrupt sh*t Trump and his family have gotten into.

And there’s a lot of corrupt sh*t. Trump is easily the most corrupt president in American history. Since being in office for a second time, he’s so far increased his wealth by an estimated $4 billion, and his sons’ and daughters’ wealth by billions more.

If the immunity part of the “settlement” remains in force, we may never know the true extent of Trump’s corrupt transactions, because the agreement — devised and signed by Blanche — may result in the largest cover-up of presidential wrongdoing and illegality in American history.

5. Overseen the largest exodus of talent in the department’s history

Blanche’s tenure has seen the departure of a record number of Department of Justice attorneys, including the termination of personnel who previously worked on Jan. 6 cases or on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.

The resignations and departures amount to over a quarter of what had been the department’s entire legal staff. For example, roughly 70% — 250 — of the Civil Rights Division’s attorneys have departed. Two-thirds (69 out of 110) of the lawyers tasked with defending executive actions have either resigned or announced their exit. Staffing of the Voting Section unit has fallen from 30 attorneys to just three. High-level resignations have also occurred in the Southern District of New York and the Public Integrity Section.

For all these reasons, Blanche should not be confirmed as attorney general of the United States.

If you’re with me on this, please contact your senator’s office and tell them to vote NO on confirming Blanche. Your senators need to hear from you, now. Please do it today.

The Senate switchboard is 202-224-3121. Elected officials prioritize their own voters, so please share your name and your city/town so the staff knows you live in their state.