Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended President Trump's direct involvement in Justice Department operations on Tuesday, arguing that Americans should welcome the president's influence over criminal investigations and prosecutorial decisions.
In an NBC News interview, Blanche responded to Trump's public directive to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue indictments against his political rivals, characterizing such executive pressure as transparency and accountability rather than interference. "That type of communication from President Trump should make every American happy," Blanche said. "It means that there's an executive, a chief executive, that is making sure every one of his Cabinet members are working as hard as they should."
Trump fired Bondi this month after growing frustrated that she had not secured enough prosecutions of his perceived enemies, according to NBC News reporting. Blanche, who replaced her as the department's acting head, promised to prioritize what the administration calls the "weaponization" of the Justice Department by Democrats.
His comments starkly depart from how previous Justice Department leaders have operated, maintaining explicit firewalls between the White House and criminal investigations to preserve prosecutorial independence. Blanche described Trump simply as "my boss" and framed investigations into Trump's political opponents as routine departmental work rather than a cornerstone of his agenda.
The new acting attorney general has inherited a series of setbacks from Bondi's tenure. Federal judges blocked subpoenas targeting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey were dismissed. The department is considering whether to retry the Comey case, NBC News reported.
Blanche also suggested the Justice Department may continue pursuing cases that federal grand juries have already rejected. When grand jurors declined to indict six sitting members of Congress over a social media video Trump labeled seditious, Blanche indicated that prosecutors need not treat such decisions as final. "It could be that the grand jury just made the wrong decision," he said. "The grand jurors don't get everything right, just like nobody gets everything right all the time."
His statement raises questions about the department's willingness to respect grand jury determinations, historically treated as binding conclusions in the American criminal justice system.
Blanche served over a year as deputy attorney general before his promotion and was Trump's personal lawyer through multiple indictments. Like Bondi, he has faced scrutiny over the handling of Jeffrey Epstein case files. The department initially announced it would release hundreds of thousands of documents in December but delivered only a fraction. It later released millions more in late January, with roughly 200,000 documents withheld or redacted for legal reasons that Blanche described as duplicates or necessary protections.
On Tuesday, Blanche defended the Epstein prosecution effort while suggesting earlier investigation would have been preferable. He indicated Trump was unlikely to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted co-conspirator.
The Justice Department released its first report from a newly created "weaponization working group" focused on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law enacted following attacks on abortion clinics. The report alleged that federal prosecutors had collaborated too closely with outside groups tracking anti-abortion protesters. At least four Justice Department employees were fired before the report's release, according to someone familiar with the firings.
Blanche stated that if confirmed as attorney general, he would eliminate what he calls "all the pure weaponization," claiming the department under the Biden administration became a "political arm of the White House."
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Blanche's unapologetic embrace of presidential control over prosecutions signals a fundamental shift in how this Justice Department will operate, abandoning decades of institutional practice designed to separate politics from criminal law enforcement."
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