Todd Blanche spent years keeping Donald Trump out of prison. Now he wants the keys to the entire Justice Department, permanently. His confirmation hearing landed Wednesday, and the only people who might stop him are a handful of Republicans who are mad he tried to hand Trump a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded gift on his way through the door.
Your Former Defense Lawyer Is Now America's Top Prosecutor
Let's just sit with the premise for a second. Trump's personal criminal defense attorney, the man paid to keep Trump specifically out of the legal system's clutches, is now asking the Senate to confirm him as the permanent head of that same legal system. That's not a metaphor for anything. That is just what is literally happening.
Blanche has been running the Justice Department on an acting basis since April, according to NPR, after Trump pushed out his first attorney general, Pam Bondi. So he's already been doing the job. Wednesday's hearing is about whether the Senate will stamp the arrangement permanent. Democrats are unanimously opposed. The fate of the nomination rests with a small number of Republicans who have, mildly, some concerns.
The $1.8 Billion Problem Nobody Can Quite Explain Away
Here is the thing that has even some Republicans grinding their teeth. Blanche's Justice Department agreed to a settlement with Trump to end his lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns. Tucked inside that settlement was a nearly $1.8 billion fund, which NPR describes as an "anti-weaponization fund." After bipartisan blowback, Blanche said the fund isn't moving forward.
But the part of the deal that matters most is still very much in place. Per NPR, the settlement still shields Trump, his family, and his businesses from IRS audits of past tax returns. On Monday, a federal judge blasted the Justice Department over the arrangement, calling it an attempt to "earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law." A federal judge. Using the word "earmark." About the sitting attorney general's deal with the president he used to personally represent.
Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, both Republicans, both members of the Judiciary Committee hearing this nomination, have raised questions about the settlement. A single Republican "no" vote on that committee kills the nomination. The math is tight.
What Blanche Has Actually Done With the DOJ So Far
While we're auditing the record, let's talk about what Blanche has been doing with the department during his months of acting leadership, because it is quite a list. The Justice Department under Blanche announced indictments against former FBI Director James Comey. It also indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that has existed since 1971. And it opened an investigation into the lawsuits that writer E. Jean Carroll brought and won against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, according to NPR.
Trump called him in May "a great lawyer, always very fair." Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, called him "well qualified." The National Association of Police Organizations has endorsed him. This is what "restoring law and order" looks like when you ask the people who are currently doing it.
1,200 Former DOJ Employees Think This Is a Very Bad Idea
A letter organized by Justice Connection, a nonprofit that helps DOJ workers navigate legal and ethics issues, was signed by roughly 1,200 former Justice Department employees urging the Senate to reject Blanche's nomination. NPR reports the letter accuses him of firing career attorneys, agents, and analysts for "improper, unlawful reasons," and warns those firings mean "much of the department's vital work isn't being done, or isn't being done as well, leaving communities less safe, Americans' rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable."
Blanche's response to 1,200 former colleagues signing a letter saying he's destroying their institution was, and this is a real quote that NPR found, "There's 1,200 former DOJ employees, I think, out of what, 40,000? I don't know. I'm not a math guy, but that's not a very high percentage." The acting attorney general of the United States said "I'm not a math guy" to dismiss warnings about national security vulnerabilities. Good. Great. Fine.
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat Dick Durbin said last month that he had warned Blanche, when he was first confirmed for the No. 2 job, that maintaining the department's independence from politics was critical. "Regrettably, over the past year, he has disregarded that call and erased that line, placing loyalty to President Trump above all else," Durbin said, adding that the damage will "have ramifications for decades."
What Happens Now
The confirmation hearing started Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern, with Blanche sitting in front of a committee that includes at least two Republicans who have real, documented objections to his conduct. Democrats are not going to save him. If Republicans with concerns vote no, he's done. If they fold, he gets the job permanently.
Trump posted on social media the night before the hearing telling every Republican senator they "should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blan" -- NPR's excerpt of the post cuts off mid-name, which is a genuinely perfect encapsulation of how this whole administration operates. The instructions arrived incomplete. Everyone is expected to comply anyway.
The Dingo Take
Here is the clearest possible way to say what is happening. A man who was paid to protect one specific person from the justice system is now in charge of the justice system. During his audition for the permanent job, he cut a deal that shields that same specific person from IRS scrutiny of his past tax returns, and called the resulting $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded settlement mechanism something that a federal judge later said had no basis in law. His response to 1,200 former colleagues warning about national security gaps was to say he isn't good at math. He's now asking for a promotion.
The genuinely darkly funny part is that the only check on any of this is a small number of Republican senators who aren't even objecting to the part where Blanche indicted Trump's political enemies or opened an investigation into a woman Trump sexually abused. They're mostly upset about the IRS deal. The bar for Republican concern is apparently not "are you using the DOJ as a personal revenge machine" but rather "are you doing it in a way that's embarrassing to us specifically."
If Blanche gets confirmed, the Justice Department's transformation from independent institution to personal presidential law firm will be complete and official. If he doesn't, Trump will just find someone who does the same things and is slightly better at pretending otherwise. Either way, the letter from those 1,200 former employees warning about decades of damage is going to age like warm milk. They weren't wrong. Nobody who's been paying attention thinks they were wrong.
