Todd Blanche Has Mutated DOJ into Trump’s Criminal Defense Firm, Destroying Its Independence
Of Course, John Roberts Helped Fuel This Disaster, too
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Todd Blanche Has Mutated DOJ into Trump’s Criminal Defense Firm, Destroying Its Independence
Just last night, Todd Blanche stood by his claim to Steve Bannon that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is not independent of the president. That is certainly true under Todd Blanche, but it was not true under the attorneys general who came before him.
He reiterated that position in his written answers to Questions for the Record submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where his nomination for Attorney General is pending. During last week’s hearing, Blanche said of Trump, “I’m his lawyer,” before quickly trying to walk it back to “was.” But it’s plain that he is still acting like Trump’s lawyer–not America’s top law enforcement official charged with enforcing the law on behalf of all Americans.
No Senate devoted to equal justice would confirm him as AG, but Trump loyalists already confirmed him as Deputy AG last March in a strictly partisan 52-46 vote. Democrats raised serious concerns that Blanche would fail to protect DOJ’s traditional independence from presidential interference in prosecutorial decisions. Blanche responded that Trump would never ask him “to do anything illegal or immoral…”
Those words are far less assuring than they first appear. Over the past 16 months, Blanche has aggressively protected Trump by shielding him from the mandated release of the fuller Epstein files, which mention Trump numerous times; pursuing prosecutions of his purported political enemies; using DOJ to secure an unprecedented and outlandish immunity deal for Trump and his family and companies; and otherwise contorting the nation’s top law enforcement agency into Trump’s law firm.
Despite Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s reading of prepared remarks insisting that DOJ is doing fine–because other career lawyers continue to do their job to enforce the law where they can–the reality is that Blanche has decimated the department. That appears to be exactly the job Trump hired him to do. It starts with the Reagan maxim that “personnel is policy.”
The Justice Department has never had a top official who worked as the president’s criminal defense attorney. Never.
Then again, we’ve never had a convicted criminal as president until now.
I don’t mean to suggest that Pam Bondi, with her taxpayer-funded burn books of insults to sling at Democrats, was merely a figurehead. But after Trump fired her, she made clear that Blanche–not she– had been at the helm of the Epstein files and much more. Even though Bondi served on Trump’s first impeachment defense team, she was no Todd Blanche, who defended Trump in three separate criminal cases, spending more than 6,000 hours keeping him “out of jail for years.” Though Bondi held the title, Blanche was–and is–the power behind the throne, the real insider working the machine.
I know more than most about the Justice Department. I was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy/Policy Development in two administrations, under both Janet Reno and John Ashcroft, whose offices were just up the stairs on the fifth floor. My office was on the fourth floor overlooking the National Archives, where the Constitution is safeguarded, and I sat just down the hall from the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) when Eric Holder and later Robert Mueller held the job. I was a part of several working groups led by Associate DAGs in both administrations. What most people don’t realize is how small–and how powerful–the DAG’s office is.
Within DOJ’s leadership structure, the Criminal Division, the Executive Office for the U.S. Attorneys, and several other components all report to the DAG. And with Donald Trump’s support, Blanche recreated part of his criminal defense team inside that office:
Emil Bove co-founded Blanche Law PLLC to represent Trump in his New York criminal fraud/false documents and hush money trial. He was also a partner at Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi (CSG). He served as Acting DAG and then Associate Deputy Attorney General before Trump named him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit despite his controversial tenure at DOJ.
Stephen Weiss served as counsel at Blanche Law PLLC after working with Blanche in the white collar criminal defense practice at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. He’s now an Associate DAG.
Kendra Wharton was Of Counsel at Blanche Law PLLC. She later became an Associate DAG before returning to private practice, where she is now litigating in the Eleventh Circuit to try to keep Jack Smith’s Special Counsel report on the classified documents case secret, in defense of the order issued by Trump appointee Aileen Cannon.
Though they were not part of Trump’s criminal defense team, Blanche also hired, among others:
Chris DeLorenz was brought on as Counsel after he finished clerking for Cannon during the proceedings following Trump’s indictment. Admitted to the bar less than four years ago, DeLorenz has already been detailed to Florida to help with what’s being called the “grand conspiracy” grand jury looking into former CIA Director John Brennan and others, as part of Trump’s revenge agenda.
Jordan Fox, who worked with Bove at CSG, is now Associate DAG and Blanche’s Chief of Staff. Trump has floated naming her a U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, even though she graduated from law school only in 2021.
Cody Poplin previously clerked for John Sauer, who is now Solicitor General and who argued the Trump criminal immunity case Blanche helped orchestrate before the Supreme Court. Poplin worked as counsel to Blanche in the DAG’s office and now serves as chief of staff to the Assistant AG overseeing the Civil Division.
For his small team as DAG, Blanche also hired lawyers who had worked closely with Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Sen. Chuck Grassley (during the Kavanaugh nomination), and others—including Rep. Jordan’s son. One of Blanche’s law firm paralegals even landed a summer gig working in the National Security Division, which reports to him. He also hired a project manager whose recent experience consisted of two years doing digital work as an administrative assistant at FOX News.
Also on the books in the DAG’s office was Jared Wise, who urged fellow rioters on January 6 to “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!” in reference to Capitol Police officers. Trump pardoned Wise while he was awaiting trial on felony charges as part of the blanket pardon for J6ers. News reports indicate that Ed Martin, Trump’s failed nominee for U.S. Attorney, hired Wise, but Blanche never fired him. Wise ultimately left after Blanche became Acting AG. Reports indicate Blanche had exiled Martin from the main Justice building, in part for not producing a “weaponization report” fast enough.
Blanche is far from the only Trump criminal defense attorney in DOJ leadership. Trump named one of Blanche’s co-counsels, Stanley Woodward, to be the Associate Attorney General, the third in command at DOJ. And John Sauer, who joined Blanche in arguing Trump’s January 6 appeal pushing for criminal immunity before the Supreme Court, now serves as the Solicitor General of the United States.
Another Trump criminal defense attorney, Harmeet Dhillon, now leads the Civil Rights Division as it pursues Trump’s demands for state voter registration records. Under Blanche, Trump also tried to install another of his criminal defense attorneys, Lindsey Halligan as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. And, in addition to Bove, Trump has nominated two more of his criminal defense attorneys to the federal bench: Matthew Schwartz to the Second Circuit and Justin Smith to the Eighth Circuit.
To be fair, Blanche did not just hire former Trump criminal defense attorneys. He also fired every prosecutor who worked on any of the January 6 cases and every FBI agent, too, something he proudly touted at CPAC. Though he claimed during last week’s hearing that he was merely reciting those firings as a matter of fact, you can see for yourself that he gloried in them. Rather than avoiding potential conflicts of interest, Blanche has treated DOJ as though it were his own law firm, effectively declaring that anyone who once investigated his most important client is conflicted out of their job, regardless of their expertise and distinguished records of civil service.
None of this destruction of DOJ would be possible without three men: Blanche, Trump, and John Roberts.
Trump wants a DOJ under his fist to do his bidding in ways even Richard Nixon did not pursue. Blanche sees no conflict in weaponizing DOJ under the manufactured claim that other prosecutors and FBI agents supposedly abused their authority simply by prosecuting Trump (and his Jan-6 thugs) for the serious crimes that there was ample evidence he committed– charges Blanche denied on his client’s behalf.
Then there is John Roberts, who has normalized the radical and extreme notion that because executive power “vests” in the president, he can control DOJ from top to bottom and remove any executive branch official–or employee–who stands in his way. Blanche has reduced that theory to a simple proposition: because cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the president, they must do whatever the president says.
But that is not true. He could say no, like Bill Barr sometimes did. More importantly, Blanche’s incantation ignores the decades of norms established across party lines to protect prosecutorial power from being weaponized against political opponents (such as pursuing James Comey for posting a photo of seashells forming the phrase “86 47,” invoking the shorthand used in restaurants to cancel a menu item).
Roberts and his fellow Republican appointees have thrown the weight of the Supreme Court behind the invented “unitary executive theory” that is the throughline behind Blanche’s claim that he cannot act independently of his boss. This is a disaster for the rule of law itself, and it poses grave threats to fair elections.
When Blanche became Acting AG, he was asked whether he had any concerns about Trump directing him to pursue politically-motivated prosecutions. He said he had none and that his only concern was whether he was doing enough for Trump. That answer, along with the $1.776 billion, the Epstein files fiasco and everything else, is why Blanche is so unworthy of serving as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
No one who acts like Trump is the law or sets the law–“L’État, c’est moi,” as King Louis the XIV supposedly declared before the French Revolution–should be entrusted with the enormous powers of the Attorney General of the United States.
What I’m Reading:
The Judiciary Act of 1789, which created the federal court system and the position of Attorney General.
That law states: “And there shall also be appointed a meet person, learned in the law, to act as attorney-general for the United States, who shall be sworn or affirmed to a faithful execution of his office; whose duty it shall be to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments, touching any matters that may concern their departments, and shall receive such compensation for his services as shall by law be provided.”
The Justice Manual, which is supposed to govern the prosecution decisions of federal attorneys.
It provides an array of standards including this admonition: “federal prosecutors and agents may never make a decision regarding an investigation or prosecution, or select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges, for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
And, the U.S. Constitution, which declares that it is a president’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” which is also part of the mandatory oath of office, which Roberts administered to Trump on January 20, 2026.
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That's $1776 BILLION, Lisa! (NOT "million" a mistake I have observed many times.......)
As usual, Lisa, you come with the facts. Blanche makes Nixon's team of criminals look like amateur night contestants. Why he still has his license to practice law is beyond me.