Attorney general backs election efforts despite repeated court defeats
Blanche told Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that he would not make a blanket promise of independence from the White House.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that,” Blanche said. “And no attorney general should ever pledge that.”
Blanche said he had sworn to the Constitution of the United States, as cabinet secretaries and attorneys general before him had done. He also said Trump had never asked him to do something unethical or illegal and would not do so.
“The president will never ask me to do something unethical or legal or illegal,” Blanche said. He called the idea that Trump would pull him aside and ask him to act illegally “a false narrative,” adding that it was “not true, will not happen and hasn’t happened.”
Blanche’s comments came days after the Senate confirmed him to succeed Bondi. The vote was 50-49, with all Democrats voting against him. Blanche previously served as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer.
Blanche said the Justice Department would continue its “election integrity” efforts despite more than 20 consecutive court defeats connected to attempts to force states to turn over voter rolls. He said the efforts concerned the midterm elections in November.
He also said a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund for allies whom Trump considered unfairly prosecuted was dead.
Blanche defended Trump’s pardons of 1,500 supporters convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol toward the end of Trump’s first presidency in early 2021. More than 170 of those people had pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.
“I’m not opining or in any way saying what President Trump did was wrong,” Blanche said. “That is the president’s right.”
Blanche declined to say whether any of the pardoned attackers might receive settlements from the federal government. He said anyone could file a claim and that he would not determine on a news program whether future litigation would result in money.
Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, criticized Blanche’s position in a social-media post. McQuade said it represented “an appalling departure” from the Justice Department’s mission after the Watergate scandal that prompted Richard Nixon to resign from the presidency in 1974.
McQuade also wrote that the Justice Department “as we once knew it, is no more” and said Blanche had turned it into Trump’s “private law firm.”
Blanche has faced scrutiny over his handling of the so-called Epstein files and his treatment of people victimized by the sex-trafficking network built by Jeffrey Epstein. In December, he defended moving Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker and Epstein associate, to a minimum-security prison.
Blanche said in April that he would tell Trump, “I love you, sir,” if Trump fired him and nominated someone else to replace Bondi.
A New York state jury convicted Trump between his two presidencies on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.