Trump’s Criminal Defense Attorney Eyes a Big Promotion

Todd Blanche has always worked for Trump. Next week he asks the Senate to make it official.

A week ago, the Department of Justice blew the federal court deadline to unredact the Epstein files - to comply with a law Trump himself signed. Instead of complying with the court, which was responding to a lawsuit filed by journalist Katie Phang, the Department defended each and every redaction, asked for a 60-day delay or better yet, a dissolution of the order, and announced an appeal.

A week from now, the guy responsible will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking to be confirmed as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Given everything that just went down, in addition to his long track record wielding the law as a partisan cudgel, I’d say that guy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is uniquely unqualified for the job. Which, in this timeline, means he’ll almost certainly get it.

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That’s because Blanche isn’t auditioning to be the nation’s top lawyer, or to defend the Constitution, though that’s what the job interview is nominally about. Blanche already has a client, and even though your tax dollars are paying his salary, he’s certainly not working for you. Todd Blanche is in this position for the exact same reason he should be disqualified from it: he’s loyally served as Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney. Clearly, he’s never stopped, even as he rose to the rank of acting Attorney General. He remained loyal to his client, only now with access to Justice Department resources.

When Blanche takes his seat next week, he has a lot to answer for. There’s the issue of the redactions in the Epstein files. Why are the victims’ names published while the perpetrators’ identities are protected? Why was Ghislaine Maxwell moved to a minimum security prison after Blanche personally interviewed her? Why haven’t three million documents been released?

Then there’s another one of his glaring conflicts of interest, in Trump’s suit against the IRS. Trump sued the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. Todd Blanche, acting as the government’s lawyer, despite having formerly been Trump’s lawyer, negotiated against himself and lost spectacularly: no tax enforcement against Trump, his family, or his businesses, ever, plus a $1.776 billion slush fund as a parting gift. That loss was a win, though, in the eyes of his once and future king, Donald Trump.

Of course, a commitment to the weaponization of the law against political enemies should be yet another disqualifying factor for Blanche. But as he’s always performing for an audience of one, it’s in fact the reason he’s the perfect candidate. Blanche has a pattern of political prosecutions, including indicting James Comey (a judge threw that one out), going after John Brennan for looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and investigating Cassidy Hutchinson after she implicated the President in the January 6 riot during House testimony.

Blanche isn’t exactly coasting on this one. He needs the support of every single Republican on the judiciary committee to be confirmed. But neither Thom Tillis nor John Cornyn have committed to backing him. Caveat: both are leaving the Senate. The only Republicans free to offer even an ounce of dissent are the ones who don’t need Trump anymore. If Blanche does make it through to the next round, he can only afford to lose three Republican votes (of which the aforementioned Tillis and Cornyn are included).

The Catch-22 here is that even if he were to lose the vote, it might not cost him the job. Trump can just leave him in place as acting attorney general, where he is free to continue doing what he’s been doing. The hearing is a formality. The upshot won’t really be whether Blanche runs the DOJ; he will - at least for a while. It’ll be whether the Senate co-signs it.

Blanche is in the position he’s in because of his die-hard fealty to Trump. He’s defended the President in two federal cases and a hush money trial in New York. That resume is not insignificant. But he’s just one in a long line of Trump’s personal lawyers who got drunk on proximity to power, and ended up burned. Rudy Giuliani was disbarred. John Eastman’s disbarment is pending. Jenna Ellis’ license was suspended. Michael Cohen is a convicted felon. Blanche is just the latest in this long line of casualties to survive long enough to be handed the keys to the castle before his past catches up with him. And if history is any indication, it will eventually. The question is, how much damage can Blanche do before it does?