The Attorney General of the United States went on national television Sunday and refused to promise that the Justice Department would act independently of Donald Trump. He didn't hedge, didn't spin it, didn't even pretend to be embarrassed about it. He just said no — and then suggested no attorney general ever should make that promise.
What He Actually Said, Word For Word
NBC's Meet the Press host Kristen Welker asked Todd Blanche a simple question: would the Justice Department always act independently of the White House? According to The Guardian, Blanche's answer was: "No, I'm not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that."
Read that again. Slowly. The nation's top law enforcement officer — the person who sits atop an agency with the power to investigate, indict, and imprison American citizens — just said, on the record, that independence from presidential power is not a commitment he's willing to make. And not just for himself. For anyone who holds the job.
Blanche was confirmed only days before this interview, squeaking through the Senate 50-49 with every single Democrat voting against him, as The Guardian reports. He previously served as Trump's personal criminal defense attorney, which apparently is now the standard career path to becoming the country's chief law enforcement officer. The circle of friends in this administration is very, very small.
The 'Trump Will Never Ask Me to Do Anything Illegal' Guarantee
Blanche also told Welker, with a straight face, that Trump would never ask him to cross an ethical or legal line. "The president will never ask me to do something unethical or legal or illegal," Blanche said, according to The Guardian. "He never has. He never will."
This is a remarkable claim for a man who was hired to defend Trump against 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels — charges on which a New York jury actually convicted his now-boss. He is vouching for the ethical cleanliness of a convicted felon. This is not a metaphor. This is the literal situation.
And remember: Blanche's predecessor, Pam Bondi, was fired because Trump became frustrated that she wasn't going after his political enemies hard enough. That's the context in which Blanche is now assuring us the president would never pressure him. The last person who had this job got fired for being insufficiently vengeful. Blanche is promising he'll be fine.
The Watergate Connection That Should Make Your Stomach Drop
The DOJ's tradition of independence from the White House didn't just appear from nowhere. It was built specifically in response to Watergate, after Richard Nixon used the Justice Department as a personal political weapon and was forced to resign the presidency in disgrace in 1974. The independence norm exists because we already watched what happens without it.
Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, put it plainly after watching Blanche's interview. The Guardian reports that McQuade wrote on social media that Blanche's position was "an appalling departure" from the department's post-Watergate mission. "The justice department, as we once knew it, is no more," McQuade wrote. "Blanche has turned it into Trump's private law firm. What a complete disgrace."
That's not hyperbole from a partisan critic. That's a law professor describing the logical endpoint of what Blanche openly admitted to on Sunday morning television. If the AG won't promise independence from the president, and the president can fire the AG for being insufficiently loyal, then the Justice Department is no longer a law enforcement institution. It's a tool.
The Rest of the Interview Was Also Something Else
Blanche didn't stop at refusing to pledge DOJ independence. He also defended Trump's pardons of the January 6th rioters, including more than 170 people who had pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers, according to The Guardian. "I'm not opining or in any way saying what President Trump did was wrong," Blanche said. "That is the president's right."
He also declined to rule out that those same pardoned Capitol attackers might still receive financial settlements from the federal government. He said anyone can file a claim, and he wasn't going to comment on litigation that "may or may not happen." So: pardon the people who beat cops with flagpoles, then maybe pay them for the trouble. Checks out.
And then there's this gem: The Guardian reports that Blanche defended moving Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted child sex trafficker, to a minimum-security prison, and that he continues facing scrutiny over his handling of the Epstein files and his treatment of Epstein's victims. This is the man now running the Justice Department. The one who won't promise to be independent from Donald Trump.
The 'False Narrative' Defense
Blanche's response to the obvious concern about all of this was to call it a "false narrative" being pushed by "the left" and "the media." The Guardian quotes him dismissing the idea that Trump would pull him aside and ask him to do something illegal as "completely a false narrative, not true, will not happen and hasn't happened."
This denial would land differently if Blanche hadn't, in April, told reporters he would say "I love you, sir" to Trump if the president decided to fire him, according to The Guardian. That's not the posture of a man maintaining institutional independence. That's the posture of someone who has already decided where his loyalty lies and is comfortable saying so out loud.
The DOJ is also currently on a losing streak for the ages: The Guardian reports the department has taken more than 20 consecutive court defeats in its push to force states to hand over voter rolls ahead of November's midterms. Blanche told Welker they'd keep going anyway. At some point you have to ask what success would even look like here, because it doesn't appear to be winning in court.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe this is fine. You are supposed to hear an attorney general say, on national television, that he refuses to pledge independence from the man who hired him, fired his predecessor for insufficient loyalty, and was convicted of felony fraud, and then accept his assurance that everything is totally above board. Todd Blanche is asking you to trust him on this. Todd Blanche, who said he would tell the president "I love you, sir" if fired. That guy.
What happened on Sunday wasn't a gaffe or a poorly worded answer. Blanche knew exactly what he was saying. He was telling you, plainly, that the Justice Department under his leadership serves Donald Trump's interests, and that he sees nothing wrong with that. The Watergate reforms were designed to prevent exactly this. They worked for about 50 years. Then Trump came back and appointed his defense lawyer to dismantle them on Meet the Press before lunch.
The piece that doesn't get enough attention is how casual all of this has become. A year ago this interview would have been a week-long scandal. Now it's a Sunday show segment that gets a few outraged tweets from law professors and then disappears into the scroll. Blanche is counting on that. The entire operation counts on exhaustion. Don't give it to them.
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