Todd Blanche, After Confirmation Battle, Could Face Recusal From Looming Prosecution of Jack Smith

If Todd Blanche is confirmed as attorney general, he “should not recuse himself” from deciding whether to prosecute Special Counsel Jack Smith, Congressman Jim Jordan said Sunday, underscoring the Republican’s priority for the prospective case.Mr. Jordan, who made those remarks on Sunday to CNN’s Dana Bash, referred Mr. Smith last week to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. The referral alleges that Mr. Smith lied to Congress in December when he asserted that he never accessed lawmakers’ text messages as part of his criminal investigation into President Trump for the events of January 6, 2021. Mr. Blanche, now the acting attorney general enmeshed in a contentious confirmation fight for the permanent post, represented Mr. Trump in that election interference case as well as another criminal case brought by Mr. Smith over the storage of classified documents at the president’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Blanche also served as Mr. Trump’s lawyer in the hush money prosecution levied by Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Mr. Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, sharply rejected Ms. Bash’s suggestion that recusal could be in order. While lawmakers can make criminal referrals, the decision whether to prosecute belongs to the attorney general. Federal law mandates that recusal of a DOJ attorney is in order when participation in a case “may result in a personal, financial, or political conflict of interest, or the appearance thereof.”The issue of Mr. Blanche’s personal relationship to Mr. Trump has come up before. In May of 2025, within months of Mr. Blanche’s appointment as deputy attorney general under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ’s top ethics authority, Joseph Tirrell, declared that Mr. Blanche would have to recuse himself from any matters involving Mr. Trump in a personal capacity. Mr. Tirrell, a holdover from the Biden administration, was soon fired. Mr. Tirrell reportedly handed Mr. Blanche “a printed PowerPoint presentation on ethics” explaining rules around recusal. The Department of Justice declared in a statement last year that “To the extent the DOJ is investigating something related to the President for which Todd was previously representing him, then hypothetically yes, he would recuse.” Recusal questions also surfaced around another lawyer for Mr. Trump turned DOJ official, Emil Bove. He now is a judge on the Third United States Appeals Circuit. Mr. Blanche has, even in an acting capacity, displayed a willingness to levy charges against Mr. Trump’s adversaries. In April, the Justice Department secured criminal charges against the former director of the FBI, James Comey, for allegedly threatening Mr. Trump with an Instagram post of seashells arranged on a beach in an “86 47” formation. Prosecutors allege that is code calling for an act of violence against the 47th president. Mr. Comey has moved to dismiss the case ahead of a trial next month.The inchoate case against Mr. Smith — whom Mr. Trump has called to be criminally prosecuted — stems from testimony about “Operation Arctic Frost.” That is the code name for Mr. Smith’s probe into Mr. Trump’s actions in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Documents released by Republicans early last year disclosed that the investigation involved the surveillance of telephone toll data from 14 GOP lawmakers, including eight senators. Only Mr. Trump was charged.Last month, though, Republican solons disclosed that Mr. Smith had also accessed text messages from 44 lawmakers, including four Democrats. The subpoenas allowing Mr. Smith access to the telephone records, which were approved by Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia, were accompanied by nondisclosure orders, meaning that the subjects of the investigation did not know that they were persons of interest.Mr. Jordan’s gripe with Mr. Smith comes from the prosecutor’s testimony under oath in December. He was asked “Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from Members?” He answered “I don’t recall.” When Mr. Smith was asked if he stopped short of searching texts, he responded “Correct.” Mr. Jordan argues that the account was untruthful. Perjury charges, though, are notoriously difficult to prove. Prosecutors are required to show not only that a defendant misspoke, but also that he did so intentionally. Mr. Jordan’s referral letter asserts that Mr. Smith “gave the impression” of something that was untrue, but that is not nearly enough to clear the bar for criminality. Unlike a recent Capitol Hill appearance by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Mr. Smith did not invoke the Fifth Amendment a single time during his testimony.In January Mr. Smith told Congress that he expected to be charged because DOJ lawyers would “do everything in their power” to prosecute him “because they have been ordered to by the president.” After that appearance Mr. Trump reckoned on Truth Social that “Based on his testimony today, there is no question that Deranged Jack Smith should be prosecuted for his actions.”

Todd Blanche, After Confirmation Battle, Could Face Recusal From Looming Prosecution of Jack Smith

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