Attorney General Todd Blanche Won't Promise DOJ Independence From Trump

Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday and gave a straight answer to a straight question. Asked if he could pledge the Justice Department would always act independently of the White House, he said no.

"No, I'm not going to pledge that," Blanche said. "And no attorney general should ever pledge that."

He didn't stop there. Asked whether he'd factor President Donald Trump's views into decisions on individual prosecutions, Blanche said yes, straight up. "Will I take the president of the United States's view on something into consideration? Yes, of course. And I hope every attorney general in history would not answer that question differently," he told Welker.

Blanche's argument, laid out in the interview, is that total independence is a fiction nobody actually wants. He offered an example: if Trump tells the DOJ to go after every violent criminal in the country, a pledge of total independence would mean telling the president no. Presidents set policy priorities for federal agencies all the time, he argued, and that's simply how the executive branch works.

Where the argument gets tested is prosecutorial discretion in individual cases involving Trump's political opponents. Blanche insists there's a bright line and Trump has never crossed it. "The president will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal," he told Welker. "He never has. He never will." He called the idea that Trump phones him up with prosecution orders "completely a false narrative," saying: "There is this extraordinarily false narrative that the president wakes up in the morning and calls me and says, 'Todd, go prosecute X or Y.' He does not do that. He has never done that."

That claim runs into a documented episode. While Blanche was serving as deputy attorney general, Trump posted a message on Truth Social directed at then-Attorney General Pam Bondi pushing for prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and, according to some reporting, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California. Trump reportedly believed the post was a private message and did not realize it had gone public. Whether that episode counts as the president "pulling someone aside" in private or simply a public statement of priorities is the crux of the dispute.

Blanche's confirmation was one of the most contentious of Trump's second term, clearing the Senate in a narrow vote after Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski broke with their party to oppose him, citing concerns that the DOJ's independence had already been eroded. Collins said Blanche had "taken several actions that have further eroded the Department's independence," while Murkowski said she lacked confidence he would "check the worst impulses of this administration."

Critics were quick to respond to Sunday's interview. University of Michigan law professor Barb McQuade called Blanche's position "an appalling departure" from the Justice Department's post-Watergate mission, writing on social media that "Blanche has turned it into Trump's private law firm. What a complete disgrace." Stacey Young, founder of Justice Connection and a former DOJ employee, said Blanche's "guiding star is fealty to the president, not the Constitution." Sen. Andy Kim said "the only reason Blanche is AG is because he will cross any ethical/legal line to defend Trump."

Blanche, who served as Trump's personal defense lawyer before joining the government, pushed back on the criticism during the interview. "I will act with integrity. Our prosecutors will act with integrity. We will prosecute without fear or any sort of favor," he said.