New acting AG plans to operate as Trump’s personal lawyer

Pam Bondi’s tenure at the Department of Justice started out with such promise. She understood from the beginning that her job was to serve not as attorney general of the United States, but as attorney general of Donald Trump. She was his personal legal hit woman, and she took on the assignment with energy and enthusiasm.

For a solid year she fulfilled her duty as a top Trump sycophant, showing not even the slightest compunction at behaving like a schoolyard bully and shameless apple polisher. During what would turn out to be her last major public appearance in office, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 11 that Trump is “the greatest president in American history” and, in an attempt to divert attention, argued that the committee should be talking about the stock market instead of the Epstein files. The assumption was that the “audience of one,” as Trump is called, would undoubtedly be pleased by her combative attitude and rousing defense of him, but it turned out that he had already soured on his attorney general. He would fire her within the month. 

Bondi had known Trump for years, even before he became president, so she should have known that, with him, loyalty only goes one way. The day after she was sacked, her official portrait was thrown in the trash at the very building that had been her domain.

It’s unclear what exactly cooled Trump on Bondi, but we do know he was unhappy about her inability to stick it to his political enemies. But Trump will perhaps have better luck with the man he immediately named as his acting attorney general — Todd Blanche, Bondi’s deputy and yet another of Trump’s personal lawyers. On Tuesday, at his first press conference after taking office, Blanche proved that he is more than up to the task of flattering the president before the television cameras. When asked if he wanted to be named to the job permanently, he replied, “I love working for President Trump. It’s the greatest honor of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I’ll say, ‘Thank you very much, I love you, sir.’”

That sort of sentiment is certainly appreciated by Trump, but it is insufficient in securing his regard. So Blanche, obviously seeking to learn from his predecessor’s mistakes, went on to make clear that he loyalty to the president comes first — ahead of the traditions and norms that have long been in place at the Justice Department, ahead of his duty to the country, ahead of any commitment to the rule of law.

A reporter asked about his policy of taking “referrals” from the president, pointing out that after Watergate, Congress intentionally constructed a firewall between the White House and the DOJ. Blanche bridled at the suggestion, calling it “the most false statement I have ever heard in my life.” 

“There is always communication between a president and his priorities and what the DOJ should be focused on and not focused on,” he said, certainly knowing that is not why the firewall was erected. It was created to insulate the department from politics to the greatest extent possible, and to prevent an attorney general from using their tremendous power on behalf of the president. After Watergate, that was considered an abuse of power. Not anymore.

Blanche went on to explain that there are “men, women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with,” and it is Trump’s right and duty to lead the country. He said that while the president doesn’t want to go after his political enemies, “he wants justice” because people had gone after him and his family. 

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That bald admission shows that, if he hopes to exonerate his boss, Blanche will need to hone his skills as a political mouthpiece. But what he might lack in rhetorical finesse, he more than has in job experience, as least as defined by Trump.

During his 14 months as Bondi’s deputy, Blanche presided over a full-scale purge of the Justice Department, which saw the firing of anyone with even the most tangential relationship to the investigations of Trump’s role in Jan. 6 and his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and his possession of classified documents after leaving office. He has made no bones about believing that any prosecutor who worked on those cases had behaved unethically and should have resigned. At the same time Blanche is defending Trump’s right to “get justice” against anyone he believes has wronged him, he is overtly punishing the department’s career prosecutors and FBI agents who were assigned to “get justice” for the president’s criminal behavior. 

There are also other ongoing inquiries targeting Trump’s political enemies, including yet another attempt to discredit the Russia investigation and the Obama administration with a secret probe based in Florida. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced that its civil rights division, headed by Harmeet Dhillon, a right-wing activist whom many are urging Trump to appoint as attorney general, has been assigned to investigate former Trump White House employee Cassidy Hutchinson for allegedly lying to Congress, a task that makes no sense for the department. The case is yet another punitive shot against one of Trump’s perceived enemies, and they are making sure it goes to a political operative who understands the assignment.

Blanche would most likely be easily confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, and his paean to Trump at Tuesday’s press conference shows that he understands his boss very well. By expressing his unconditional love for the president and making clear his willingness to be tossed aside like one of his discarded wives, Blanche has signaled he will do anything Trump wants him to. And if anything goes wrong, he’ll happily take the fall. 

Blanche is the attorney general of Trump’s dreams. Until he isn’t.