Todd Blanche arrived at the Justice Department with a single directive: prove he belongs there permanently. In just weeks as acting attorney general, he has moved aggressively to dismantle cases and launch new investigations targeting the president's perceived enemies, signaling that if confirmed, the agency's politicization would deepen significantly.
Blanche took the interim post after Trump fired Pam Bondi earlier this month, reportedly frustrated with her pace in pursuing the president's political rivals. Trump explicitly told Blanche to treat the acting role as an audition for the permanent job, according to Fox News reports.
The attorney general has wasted no time delivering results. Within two weeks, he fired four career prosecutors after a contentious report accused them of bias against anti-abortion protesters. He also brought in Joe diGenova, an 81-year-old former US attorney and Trump campaign loyalist, to oversee an investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan and others over their conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 election. DiGenova, who has called for executing a Department of Homeland Security official who vouched for the 2020 election's security, replaced a career prosecutor who had begun questioning the investigation's merit.
The justice department has also moved to overturn seditious conspiracy convictions against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for crimes committed during the January 6 Capitol attack.
A Justice Department official acknowledged the shift in tone. "There has been more pressure internally on matters involving Trump enemies since Blanche took over," the person said. "Doesn't mean he'll be any more successful than Bondi, but he, via his surrogates, is definitely demanding results."
The department's official response portrayed Blanche as committed to impartial enforcement. "Blanche has made clear that the department's mission is to apply the law equally to all persons," a spokesperson said, adding that he remains "committed to upholding the rule of law, advancing President Trump's agenda, and ending the weaponization of government."
On Tuesday, the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts, advancing a novel legal theory that the civil rights organization defrauded donors by funneling money to the extremist groups it monitored. The SPLC had long employed paid informants to track extremist movements and share intelligence with law enforcement across Republican and Democratic administrations.
Legal experts quickly labeled the charges weak. "The shoddiness of the indictment speaks for itself," said Vanita Gupta, a civil rights lawyer at New York University and former third-ranking official at the Justice Department under Biden. The indictment ignores the organization's longstanding cooperation with law enforcement and represents "yet another kind of salvo in the administration's attacks on nonprofit organizations and trying to quell dissent," Gupta added.
Democracy Forward's president and CEO Skye Perryman said the recent weeks show "a sharper focus on the president's retaliation agenda." She warned that the administration's approach would likely falter in court. "If the administration wants an attorney general that's going to prevail in court, they're not going to be able to find one. It doesn't matter who it is because the administration's conduct is so lawless."
Harry Litman, a former Justice Department lawyer, said Blanche had not only replicated Bondi's Trump-pleasing moves but "taken her one better or worse in several instances where the cases or actions he's brought go beyond anything she did." Mike Davis, who leads the conservative Article III Project, praised Blanche as off to a "fantastic start." "Todd is making bold and fearless moves to bring much-needed accountability," Davis said.
Blanche enters the confirmation process shadowed by his handling of Jeffrey Epstein files, which Congress and the Justice Department inspector general continue investigating. This week the department also dropped a politically charged inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, just as his term was set to expire and a key Senate Republican had pledged to block his successor while the investigation continued.
Some Trump loyalists remain skeptical of Blanche's credentials. He was a registered Democrat until recently, joining Trump's legal defense team after leaving a lucrative law partnership. Peter Ticktin, a Trump-connected Florida lawyer who has expressed interest in the attorney general position, dismissed the SPLC indictment as a "stupid case" and "really pathetic." Ticktin also criticized Blanche for casting Bondi in a negative light. "He's attempting to show that with Pam Bondi gone, things are going to start happening. And that's a lowlife tactic," Ticktin said.
Author James Rodriguez: "Blanche is running a masterclass in institutional capture, and the only question left is whether Senate Republicans will rubber-stamp it or demand something resembling a law enforcement agency instead of a personal political weapon."
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