Emails Show Attorney General Nominee Todd Blanche Ran DOJ's Trump Retribution Cases

Records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show acting Attorney General Todd Blanche personally directed the Justice Department's effort to investigate President Donald Trump's political adversaries, according to The New York Times. The documents, obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight and first reported this week, come a day before Blanche's Senate confirmation hearing to become permanent attorney general, scheduled for Wednesday.

The records include calendar entries showing recurring meetings of the DOJ's "Weaponization Working Group," convened at Blanche's request and held in his own conference room, according to American Oversight. Staffing assignments in the documents place senior officials from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General on investigations touching election administration, Jan. 6 prosecutions, former Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the FBI's Richmond memorandum, and abortion-related prosecutions.

Blanche has served as Trump's top DOJ deputy since last year, working under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi before her ouster in April, and has led the department in an acting capacity since. He previously served as Trump's personal defense attorney in his criminal cases.

What the emails show

According to the Times, Blanche diverted a significant number of top DOJ lawyers in May 2025 to the anti-weaponization group tasked with carrying out Trump's executive order aimed at what the administration calls the "weaponization" of government against him. That order is the legal basis for the DOJ's post-2025 push to investigate officials from prior administrations who pursued cases against Trump.

One Blanche aide was assigned to dig into the conduct of Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted Trump on charges related to classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Another aide was tasked with investigating Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA whose office secured Trump's 2024 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to payments to Stormy Daniels.

A third aide led a team focused on Tina Peters, the former Colorado elections clerk who served roughly four years of a nine-year sentence for violating state election laws while trying to prove nonexistent fraud claims tied to the 2020 election.

The emails also show Blanche initially let Ed Martin, a DOJ official who had previously represented Jan. 6 defendants in court, personally oversee investigations into more than 1,500 rioters prosecuted for the Capitol attack, as well as a probe into former President Joe Biden's use of an autopen. Martin was removed from that role in May, according to the Times, with the emails indicating Blanche had concerns about whether Martin was experienced enough to run the operation effectively.

The competing narrative

Blanche's supporters have argued he functioned as a moderating force inside an administration full of more aggressive operators, reining in figures like Martin and FHFA Director Bill Pulte. The documents do show Blanche removed Martin from the weaponization group.

But the same records establish that Blanche built and ran the operation himself before making that change, and that the group's investigations and reports accelerated after Martin left, according to the Times. Regional U.S. attorneys' offices have also moved to build a broader case involving Biden and other Trump adversaries since then, the Times reported, though no charges have been filed and no indictment has been announced as of this writing.

Whether that expanding effort amounts to a legitimate accountability push or a political retribution campaign is a matter of dispute. Trump's DOJ has framed the working group as correcting what it calls politically motivated prosecutions under the Biden administration. Critics, including American Oversight's executive director Chioma Chukwu, call it exactly the opposite: a Justice Department weaponized against the president's opponents, run by the same man now asking senators to confirm him as its permanent head.

"The American people deserve to know how Todd Blanche has used the extraordinary powers of the Justice Department to further the President's 'weaponization' agenda," Chukwu said in a statement accompanying the document release. "Senators should judge him not by his assurances at a confirmation hearing, but by the record he has already built."

What's unresolved

No court has ruled on the legality of the working group's activities, and no charges have been brought against Smith, Bragg, or Biden as of today. The documents establish Blanche's role in organizing and staffing the effort, not whether any of the underlying investigations will produce prosecutable cases.

Blanche's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, July 15. Senators are expected to question him directly about the emails and his oversight of the working group, though whether Democrats can do more than raise objections is an open question given the Senate's Republican majority.