Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche listens during a news conference on unaccompanied children at the Justice Department Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) The nomination of President Trump’s personal fixer and enforcer Todd Blanche to be U.S. attorney general feels like an existential test for the rule of law.
Truthfully, the same could be said for much of Trump’s second term. A crucial test for each of us and for our democratic institutions — especially the U.S. Senate — is not to be so numbed by Trump’s relentless lawbreaking and corruption that we fail to see this nomination for the bright red line that it is.
The attorney general is responsible for federal efforts to punish lawbreaking and pursue justice fairly. Todd Blanche is everything an attorney general should not be.
The Not Above the Law Coalition summarized his record at the Department of Justice as “16 months of corruption, retaliation, and abuse of power.” The conservative Society for the Rule of Law has urged senators to reject Blanche’s nomination based on his “troubling disregard for fundamental rule of law principles,” including his declaration of “war” against the independent judiciary.
Blanche’s actions demonstrate that his ultimate loyalty is not to the Constitution or the American people, but to the boss he represented in court, an amoral authoritarian who demonstrates contempt for the law and for judges who defend it.
Blanche is an ideological enforcer for Trump, helping our president turn the Justice Department into a powerful weapon against his personal enemies. The conservative editors at National Review wrote that while Blanche has served as interim attorney general, he has revealed himself to be “an instrument of Trump’s unworthy and abusive campaign to investigate and prosecute his political opponents.”
Blanche is the face of Justice Department efforts to create an astonishingly corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund for the president to dole out to his allies. He granted Trump’s entire family and its business empire an incredible blanket immunity for corrupt tax dealings. He has defended Trump’s pardons for violent Jan. 6 insurrectionists and pardons-for-pay.
Blanche’s office killed a criminal investigation into repeated Clean Water Act violations by coal companies owned by MAGA enthusiast, Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), one more piece of evidence that under Blanche’s watch, Trump’s allies are allowed to ignore the rules that the rest of us have to follow.
Respect for the rule of law should transcend partisanship. That’s why people across the political spectrum are urging senators to reject Blanche’s nomination.
Conservative writer William Kristol has called Blanche “the prime orchestrator and key executor of the Trump administration’s Jeffrey Epstein coverup.”
Indeed, Blanche is overseeing the Justice Department’s failure to fully comply with a law mandating the release of the Epstein files. He held secret talks with Epstein’s convicted sex-trafficking partner Ghislaine Maxwell. After saying nice things about Trump, she was rewarded with a transfer to a cushy prison where she reportedly enjoys unprecedented special treatment.
No wonder Maxwell’s attorney thinks Blanche is doing “an amazing job” — but for who? Not for the American people who want the full truth about Epstein to finally come out.
The ongoing destruction of the Justice Department is disqualifying all by itself.
The Society for the Rule of Law noted that under Blanche, “respect for the Department of Justice has reached historic lows,” and the department “has lost talented attorneys and agents through politically motivated terminations and forced resignations, a disturbing blow to [Justice Department] competence that Mr. Blanche has openly bragged about.”
Federal judges are tossing out cases based on lies and other misconduct by government lawyers — and losing confidence in the longtime assumption that government attorneys are acting in good faith. The Justice Department has repeatedly dropped criminal charges when they could not make a case in court, suggesting that bogus arrests and charges against anti-ICE protesters are an abuse of the legal system meant to harass and intimidate administration critics.
Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance recently wrote that under previous administrations, knowingly using false information to arrest and charge defendants would have cost agents their jobs and earned prosecutors a reprimand for negligence. “But now,” Vance notes, “this abuse of the public trust is a regular occurrence.”
On top of all that, Blanche is trying to remove the last remaining ethical guardrails for Justice Department lawyers by letting the department block local bar associations from punishing Justice Department attorneys for misconduct.
This is a red alert moment.
On its merits, Blanche’s nomination should be rejected on an overwhelming bipartisan basis. But Trump’s tight and intimidating grip on his party means that it’s going to be close.
There are Republican senators who have expressed reservations about Blanche’s nomination. Let’s call on them to do their job: honor the duties of their office, show respect for the American people and the rule of law and draw a line against the continued corruption of the Justice Department.
Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche anti-weaponization fund Department of Justice Donald Trump Epstein files Ghislaine Maxwell Ghislaine Maxwell Ghislaine Maxwell DOJ meeting ICE protests Jan 6 Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Epstein Jim Justice Joyce Vance Justice Department President Donald Trump Protesters rule of law Sen. Jim Justice Todd Blanche Todd Blanche Trump administration Trump criminal cases trump irs settlement Trump Jan. 6 pardons Trump retaliation U.S. attorney general William Kristol William KristolCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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