Blanche’s willingness to bend justice to serve the president’s private agenda is evident. No surprise that Trump wants to keep him as attorney general.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to lead the Justice Department on a permanent basis. The move isn’t surprising given Blanche’s pronounced readiness to appease his superior. Yet that same proclivity raises concerns for anyone who believes the attorney general should seek justice rather than the president’s personal grievances.
Blanche, a former federal prosecutor, represented Trump in several criminal matters, and his relentless advocacy earned him a post as deputy attorney general. But last year, despite expectations that he would continue acting as the president’s personal lawyer, Blanche reportedly resisted some of the steps Trump took to pursue vendettas against his political adversaries. In September, The New York Times reported that Blanche and Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, had “quietly questioned” the appointment of Lindsey Halligan—a Trump loyalist with no prosecutorial experience—as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Halligan’s primary qualification for that role was her willingness to push two indictments Trump had publicly demanded, both of which were later dismissed after a federal judge ruled Halligan’s appointment unlawful. One indictment charged former FBI Director James Comey with lying to Congress, while the other charged New York Attorney General Letitia James with mortgage fraud. Blanche was reportedly skeptical about the latter case, arguing that the government lacked sufficient evidence to charge James.
That was then. After Trump dismissed Bondi on April 2 and Blanche took over as acting attorney general, he appeared eager to secure a lasting appointment by indulging the president’s wishes.
On April 28, Blanche announced another indictment against Comey, absurdly alleging that he had publicly threatened to assassinate the president by posting an Instagram image of seashells arranged to spell the message “86 47.” That slogan, a common anti-Trump sentiment, is featured on T-shirts and bumper stickers sold by major online retailers, which also offer variations referencing former President Joe Biden (“86 46”) and Trump during his first term (“86 45”). Although no reasonable person would claim that those who sell or buy such products mean to threaten death, that was the interpretation Trump favored in Comey’s case, and it was the interpretation Blanche endorsed as well.
“Threatening the life of the President of the United States is a grave violation of our nation’s laws,” Blanche declared. “The grand jury returned an indictment alleging James Comey did just that, at a time when this country has witnessed violent incitement followed by deadly actions against President Trump and other elected officials. The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable.”
Blanche later conceded that “86 47” is “posted constantly” by people who, unlike Comey, never face federal charges. But he asserted that “a body of evidence” gathered during an 11-month federal investigation would prove the “intent” required to convict Comey.
Given the ubiquity of “86 47” and the long-standing slang use of eighty-six, which has various nonhomicidal meanings, no amount of evidence could make it reasonable to interpret the slogan as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm,” as the indictment describes it. This case, therefore, seemed doomed from the start, even before any attempt to establish Comey’s requisite intent.
One of the charges requires proving that Comey “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that his image would be interpreted as a threat of violence, which is the minimum level of culpability the Supreme Court has said is necessary to convict someone of making a “true threat.” The other charge demands more: prosecutors would have to prove that Comey wanted people to view his image as a threat to kill the president. The doubt on both counts is, to say the least, reasonable.
Yet there stood Blanche, insisting with a straight face that Comey’s seashell image, clearly constituting constitutionally protected political speech, justifiably sparked an 11-month investigation culminating in an indictment that carries up to 10 years in prison. It would be hard to imagine clearer evidence that Blanche is willing to subvert justice in service of the president’s grudges.
It gets worse. This week, Blanche confirmed that the Justice Department will not implement the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” described in Trump’s May 18 “settlement” of his lawsuit against the IRS. The plan drew political and legal backlash for appearing corrupt: it stemmed from a pretextual lawsuit pitting Trump against agencies he oversees and aimed to benefit his allies. Yet Blanche still argued there was nothing wrong with distributing taxpayer money to Trump’s supporters who claim they were persecuted by Democrats, potentially including the roughly 1,600 Capitol rioters whom Trump pardoned on the first day of his second term.
“There were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them,” Blanche said during a Tuesday House subcommittee hearing. “The reasons for the fund…remain as important as they were before.”
Viewed at that level of abstraction, one might not disagree. Yet the fund’s framing suggested that the process would tilt in favor of the president’s friends.
According to the settlement agreement, the fund was meant to compensate individuals who were targeted by the government for “improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons.” The agreement described the fund as a remedy for abuses of “government power” by “Democrat elected officials, political and career employees, contractors, and agents.” Trump also made clear that his aim was “helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!”
During a Senate hearing last month, Blanche nonetheless insisted that the fund was open to anyone claiming to be a victim of “lawfare or weaponization,” irrespective of ideology or affiliation. Even Hunter Biden, who was convicted of gun and tax charges during his father’s presidency but saved by a presidential pardon, could seek compensation, Blanche said, though that “doesn’t mean the commissioners will agree.”
What about Trump supporters who engaged in violent acts during the Capitol riot? “Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D–Md.) asked Blanche. “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were a victim of weaponization,” Blanche replied.
What about James Comey? The fund was supposed to “compensate people who’ve been targeted by the Department of Justice for, they say, personal, political, or ideological reasons,” Comey noted after the settlement was announced. “So I’m guessing I’ll be in line. I hope I’ll be ahead of those who savagely beat police officers and sacked the Capitol.”
That quip goes to the heart of Blanche’s shameless hypocrisy. He opposes weaponization of government except when it serves his boss, in which case he’s more than willing to help.
Blanche also assisted Trump by issuing a May 19 addendum to the “settlement” with the IRS. That provision purportedly shields Trump and his family from any IRS claims based on their prior tax returns, potentially saving Trump more than $100 million in penalties and shielding them from liability for any federal offenses they may have committed before May 19.
Like the Anti-Weaponization Fund, that extraordinary immunity grant had nothing to do with Trump’s disputes with the IRS, which involved an IRS contractor’s illegal disclosure of his tax returns. At Tuesday’s hearing, Blanche described the addendum as “a separate attorney general order.” But it remains unclear where Blanche derives the authority to govern the IRS, which sits outside the Justice Department, let alone to constrain the actions of every other agency in the executive branch.
Even more puzzling is why Blanche believed settling this case required protecting the president and his family from penalties ordinary Americans face for violations of federal law. As with Comey’s prosecution, the only plausible explanation seems to be that Blanche intends to do whatever the president asks, with little regard for legal ethics or his official duties.
The supposed basis for the immunity deal was a lawsuit in which both sides were represented by lawyers who work for Trump. Under an executive order Trump issued in February 2025, the government’s lawyers were barred from “advancing an interpretation of the law” that “contravenes” the president’s position. The DOJ avoided this issue by opting not to mount any defense at all, even though Trump had clearly missed the statutory deadline for filing such claims and it was questionable whether the IRS could be held liable for the actions of a contractor it did not employ.
That peculiar turn prompted Kathleen Williams, the Florida federal judge who oversaw Trump v. IRS, to wonder whether the case involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the suit to proceed. She ordered briefing on that issue by May 20. But because Trump dismissed his suit two days before that deadline, Williams never resolved the central question. She also never had a chance to review what was described as the “settlement.”
Last week, in response to a May 27 motion from 35 former federal judges urging reopening, Williams ordered a government response to their “grievous allegations.” She said the brief, due by June 15, should address “the charges of collusion and whether the Parties are truly adverse,” “the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the Parties,” and “the question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.’”
Williams invoked Rule 11, designed to “deter baseless filings” by allowing sanctions against attorneys who file claims that are legally frivolous, unsupported by evidence, or driven by “any improper purpose.” Under that rule, attorneys who submit complaints, briefs, or motions are required to “certify that the filing is not presented for any improper purpose,” Williams noted. “A party’s decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement may qualify as such an improper purpose.”
The “party” in this case, of course, is the president of the United States, who weaponized a sham lawsuit to extract benefits for himself, his family, and his supporters. That scam would have been impossible without Blanche’s negligence and enthusiastic cooperation in delivering the favors Trump sought. In Trump’s view, that performance makes Blanche eminently qualified to serve as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
