blanche

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche is blurring traditional boundaries between politics and federal law enforcement with recent speeches at political events that mark a sharp departure from norms meant to protect the Justice Department from the appearance of partisan bias.

Blanche took the stage this week at an event for a Republican Senate candidate in North Carolina days after speaking at a GOP midterm convention, where he praised Trump and touted the administration’s tough-on-crime approach.

Blanche’s participation at the rallies has drawn scrutiny from critics who say it threatens to undermine public faith in law enforcement decisions that are supposed to be made free of political interference. It has added to critics’ concerns about Blanche’s loyalty to Trump and White House influence on Justice Department matters against the backdrop of investigations into numerous perceived foes of the president.

“It lends credence to the arguments that the Justice Department is hopelessly politicized,” said Richard Painter, who was a White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “And that’s not where we want to be right now.”

Blanche has brushed aside norms

Attorneys general have typically stayed away from political rallies and at arm’s length from the White House to prevent the appearance of law enforcement interference in elections and to protect the perception of impartiality in prosecutions.

Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Trump, has brushed aside such norms and fiercely defended the president’s interests in the department, which brought two criminal cases against Trump under President Joe Biden. Blanche has rejected allegations that the Trump administration has politicized the agency and accusations that the White House is improperly involved in department matters.

Blanche has used his speeches at the rallies to promote the administration’s efforts to bring down violent crime, illegal border crossings and drug trafficking as Republicans put their tough-on-crime policies at the center of the midterm elections. In another unusual move, he held a press briefing at the White House this week, fielding questions from reporters on a host of matters including the Iran war.

At an event Wednesday in North Carolina for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, Blanche told the crowd, “More of your family, more of your friends, more of your community members, more of your loved ones are safer than they were just two years ago.”

“And that’s President Trump and Vice President Vance delivering on a promise that they made to you,” said Blanche, calling Trump “the greatest president of our generation.” His speech also veered into topics outside his law enforcement portfolio such as the stock market, inflation and wage growth.

Blanche says he is not endorsing candidates at political events

The Justice Department said Blanche’s appearances at political events are made in his personal capacity, and noted that his speeches have addressed the administration’s efforts broadly but do not get into agency policies or official business.

“His appearances are reviewed and cleared by the Department’s ethics officials,” spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in an email Thursday. “Travel expenses are reimbursed by the Attorney General in accordance with federal law, regulations, and policies.”

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Blanche dismissed criticism about his appearance at a Long Island event where Trump sought to boost Republican candidates in closely contested races.

The watchdog group Public Citizen filed a complaint accusing Blanche of violating a law that limits political activity by government workers by participating in that event alongside Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Trump-endorsed Republican challenging Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“I will always say yes to speak when the president of the United States asks me to,” Blanche told the AP last month. “I was there purely thanking cops, law enforcement, for doing their jobs. The idea that that’s turned into somehow criticism is laughable.” Blanche said he was not endorsing political candidates but instead “talking about the great work that President Trump is doing.”

Federal law and Justice Department policy limit political activity

The Hatch Act prohibits government officials from using their official positions to influence elections. That includes supporting candidates while acting in their official capacities. Watchdog groups have long complained that the law isn’t a strong deterrent and enforcement has been inadequate and uneven.

The Justice Department under Biden in 2022 tightened its restrictions on employees’ attendance at political events after then-Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins attended a fundraiser that featured first lady Jill Biden. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was fired by Trump in April, later rescinded those restrictions.

Rollins’ attendance at the fundraiser sparked an outcry from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who sought an investigation and wrote a letter asserting that U.S. attorneys are supposed to act as nonpartisan law enforcement officials rather than as partisan politicians. Rollins resigned in 2023 after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog accused her of broad misconduct.

Before those changes, longstanding department policy had allowed political appointees — who are hired under presidential administrations rather than making long careers at the agency — to attend political events in their personal capacities if they participated “passively” and obtained prior approval.

Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, barred their attendance at fundraisers and other campaign events altogether, saying it was necessary to ensure that politics “both in fact and appearance” won’t affect how the law is enforced or inquiries are carried out.

Richer writes for the Associated Press.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche’s fidelity to President Trump nearly cost him his confirmation. Now comes Blanche’s real test.

Trump’s former personal attorney has stepped into the commanding role facing a challenge that other leaders of the Republican president’s Department of Justice could not overcome: threading the needle between Trump’s boundary-busting demands and a prosecutor’s duty to uphold the rule of law. At the same time, Blanche must try to stabilize a workforce shaken by an exodus of experienced lawyers and an erosion of trust in the judicial branch.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press during a trip to Puerto Rico this week, Blanche promised to lead the department with integrity, dismissing concerns from critics who say his actions so far — including an indictment against longtime Trump foe and former FBI Director James Comey — call into question whether Blanche is still functioning as Trump’s personal lawyer.

A slew of ongoing politically charged investigations under Blanche’s watch could force him to choose between his long-standing loyalty to the president and the foundational principles of the Cabinet agency he leads. At stake is the fate of a department already reeling under a president who has made clear his desire for retribution over the criminal scrutiny he faced.

“My integrity, my commitment to the rule of law is the same today that it was the day I graduated,” Blanche told the AP when asked where he would draw the line on requests from the White House. “I would never do anything unethical or improper or violate my oath, no matter the circumstances.”

Critics disagree.

As acting attorney general, Blanche came under fire from lawmakers, including many Republicans, for signing off on a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate Trump’s allies who believed they were politically prosecuted. He also greenlit a deal that granted Trump, the Trump Organization, and two of his sons immunity from tax audits. Those moves, unusual steps aimed at granting the president and his allies far-reaching benefits, put Blanche’s confirmation at risk, prompting key senators to express concern.

Blanche, like Trump’s other attorneys general, walks a tightrope

In the AP interview, Blanche addressed criticism of the department under his leadership, his priorities as attorney general and losses the administration has had in high-profile cases. He also depicted the Justice Department as an institution whose independence had eroded long ago — a characterization at odds with decades of fierce autonomy that challenged the highest echelons of power in Washington and beyond.

Blanche, a former federal prosecutor in New York, is walking the same tightrope as Trump’s three other Senate-confirmed attorneys general. They found their pledges to uphold the rule of law and the department’s ethical norms at odds with the president’s demands to bend the institution to his will.

During Trump’s first term, one attorney general infuriated Trump over his withdrawal from an investigation into Trump’s winning White House campaign and was forced out. Another submitted his resignation weeks after breaking with Trump over Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Blanche’s immediate predecessor, Pam Bondi, was ousted in April after failing to deliver successful prosecutions against the president’s political enemies.

Blanche’s narrow confirmation this month over opposition from two Republican senators underscored growing concerns about the dismantling of the Justice Department’s long-standing tradition of independence from the White House, which is meant to protect the impartiality of politically sensitive investigations and prosecutions.

Concerns that the Justice Department is being weaponized

Blanche bristles at the suggestion that the Justice Department should be independent of the president and he has made clear his view that the executive has both the power and the right to shape and control the law enforcement agency.

He has staunchly defended the integrity of cases the administration has brought against the president’s perceived political opponents, often pointing to his own experience representing Trump in criminal cases brought by Democratic President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Blanche and the president have characterized those cases as politically motivated.

“I think attorneys general and others have said, ‘Oh, we’re independent.’ I don’t think that’s actually true,” Blanche told the AP.

Blanche claimed the Justice Department was not truly independent when he was a federal prosecutor or during the Biden administration. But that characterization ignores the fact that under Biden, the Justice Department investigated Biden himself over his handling of classified documents and secured felony charges in two separate cases against his son Hunter before Biden pardoned him.

The two criminal cases filed by special counsel Jack Smith against Trump were based on allegations, supported by long-running investigations, that Trump had classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructed government efforts to get them back, and conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

Growing distrust of the Justice Department among judges

Blanche has sought to highlight the administration’s focus on tackling illegal immigration, violent crime and drug-trafficking cartels, spotlighting cases such as the takedown of a Puerto Rican gang that he announced during his visit to the U.S. island territory.

But Blanche’s policy priorities are often overshadowed by a growing number of investigations that have drawn criticism that the department is being used as a weapon in the president’s campaign of retribution.

Blanche’s supporters have argued that the close relationship he developed with Trump while serving as his criminal defense lawyer can make him more effective at pushing back on or explaining the legal constraints of the president’s demands. Others wonder whether he will fare any better than Bondi up against the same skeptical court system, and factual and legal hurdles, that impeded efforts to deliver the sought-after results.

Blanche is also confronting growing distrust of the Justice Department among judges, who in multiple cases have accused government lawyers of withholding information or misleading courts. Courts in some cases have quashed subpoenas or ordered the review of grand jury transcripts, and the criminal cases against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were dismissed after a judge found the prosecutor who brought them was illegally appointed.

But Blanche played down concerns that the erosion of judicial trust could impede his efforts to advance his agenda.

“The isolated incidents that make the news are not reflective of the way the bench feels in my view, or the way prosecutors are doing their job around the country,” Blanche said.

Richer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.