WASHINGTON, DC — Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche has spent his time at the Justice Department protecting the president who once employed him personally, and his weekend attempt to obscure that follows the same pattern. Blanche’s Justice Department released an order late Sunday claiming to rescind the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, but Trump never signed it and hasn’t disavowed the fund himself. In fact, he defended the fund, telling reporters this weekend it would be a “reimbursement for the pain” suffered by his allies.
Even as Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis appear ready to accept this as enough and clear the way for Tuesday’s committee vote, a wave of longtime conservative voices say Blanche’s record disqualifies him regardless.
Here’s what conservative voices are saying about Blanche’s nomination, in their own words:
Andrew McCarthy, National Review: “Why Trump Won’t Just Break The Blanche Impasse”
“The irony is that Todd Blanche can’t be confirmed for the very reason that he shouldn’t be confirmed: He is willfully running interference for something tawdry that President Trump is insistent on doing under the guise of Justice Department authority, namely, establishing the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund. An attorney general fit for the job would resign rather than be a part of that.”
Former GOP Gov. Chris Christie, ABC’s This Week: “Todd Blanche Said ‘I’m His Lawyer'”
“Yeah, look, it’s revenge. Revenge, revenge. And owning the Justice Department as if it’s his own private law firm, George… Here’s what John Cornyn and Thom Tillis thankfully, finally have learned is no deal that Donald Trump gives you with his mouth is ever worth anything… He said it very clearly in a real Freudian moment when he said, I’m his lawyer. I mean, oh, I was his lawyer. He’s still his lawyer. The Justice Department is Donald Trump’s professional legal firm.”
George Will, The Washington Post: “Against Todd Blanche”
“In April, Blanche became acting attorney general when Trump fired Bondi. ‘Nobody has any idea why,’ said Blanche. Plausible reports said Trump considered Bondi insufficiently aggressive about prosecuting his enemies. Blanche has said, cloudily, that ‘some’ Justice Department prosecutions ‘involve men, women, and entities’ that Trump ‘has had issues with. … That is his right, and indeed it is his duty to do that, meaning, to lead this country.’
“Blanche said it is ‘completely false’ that the president targets political enemies. Trump merely ‘wants justice.’ Blanche said he was not ‘celebrating’ Trump’s pardons of almost all the approximately 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters when, to a gathering of Trump supporters, he praised the ‘generous’ pardons as one of the administration’s accomplishments.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano, Standard-Examiner: “Why The Blanche Nomination Should Be Rejected”
“Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is not qualified to be the attorney general of the United States because he has demonstrated a hopeless conflict between the rule of law, which he has taken an oath to support, and his sense of personal loyalty to President Donald Trump, whom he represented for several years in a notorious but frivolous criminal case in New York.
“What to do about a nominee as chief law enforcement officer in the land who has and will not disavow this conflict? Reject him.”
Gregg Nunziata, Society For The Rule Of Law: “Our Official Letter In Opposition To Todd Blanche’s Attorney General Confirmation”
“As a former chief Republican nominations counsel to this Committee, who had the honor of working on the confirmation process for a previous Republican Attorney General, I do not transmit these sentiments lightly. This Committee and the Senate, however, can never become mere rubber stamps for a president who seeks to abuse executive power and subvert the law. If it were to become so, it would fatally undermine the constitutional design carefully crafted at Philadelphia in 1787. The position of Attorney General is too important for this Committee to lower its standards and confirm a nominee whose record so sharply departs from the Justice Department’s proudest traditions of prosecutorial integrity and equal justice under law.”
National Review Editors: “No To Todd Blanche For Attorney General”
“Congress has a constitutional obligation to rein in executive abuses of power, as it did in pushing back against the ‘Anti-Weaponization’ slush fund. The arsenal the Framers provided to the Senate for this purpose includes the power to refuse to confirm the president’s appointees until the president ceases and desists in abusing his authority.
“The Senate is, moreover, duty-bound to do what it can to ensure that the Justice Department, created by Congress, fulfills its constitutional and statutory obligation to enforce the law evenhandedly, without fear, favor, or political bias.
“It can’t fulfill this duty and also lend its imprimatur to Blanche’s dubious handiwork as Trump’s ideal AG.”
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