‘Meet’ Todd Blanche

The cataract of hysteria that has greeted the Senate’s confirmation of Todd Blanche to be attorney general sent us back to the Judiciary Act of 1789. That’s when the First Congress created the attorney general of the United States. It’s an epochal piece of legislation, signed by President Washington. It doesn’t get around to creating the attorney general until its last sentence. The Act requires of the AG that aside from being “learned in the law,” he also be “meet.”That’s it — “meet.” We don’t run into that word much these days. The adjective, according to Webster’s Second International, means that a person or something “fits well or exactly” or is “suitable; fit; proper; appropriate; qualified.” The Judiciary Act, though, doesn’t get into the details. That seems to be the point. It is satisfied if the candidate for attorney general is meet — or is a person who could be described as “well met.”By our lights, Attorney General Blanche demonstrated in the past few days the principles for which the authors of the Judiciary Act were looking. What illuminated the point for us was the effort to get Mr. Blanche, when he was but the nominee, though also after, to pledge that he would act independently of the White House. “No,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press, “I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that.”The authors of the Judiciary Act would have understood. They describe the duties of the attorney general as to “prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments, touching any matters that may concern their departments.” *This is why we’ve been arguing that the attorney general can’t act entirely independently of the president. The law understood that the president would turn to the AG for his advice and opinion on questions of the law when the president demanded it. The President can require — again, require — the attorney general to give him legal advice. It would be a violation of the letter and spirit of the Judiciary Act for an attorney general to refuse the very idea.We don’t mind saying that, in general, we have been against a lawfare campaign by President Trump similar to that waged by the Democrats against him during the Biden years. The particulars matter, though. The Judiciary Act doesn’t bar the president from exploring whether, say, the law was broken by, say, James Comey or Jack Smith. Nor does it bar Mr. Blanche from giving the president his advice on the legal questions.President Nixon’s attorney general, Elliot Richardson, was, during his confirmation, hectored on the Hill to commit that he wouldn’t fire the special counsel he had appointed. Richardson, shockingly, made the commitment, agreeing with Nixon’s adversaries on the Hill not to exercise a power the Constitution grants to the president. When push came to shove, Richardson, having painted himself into a corner, had to resign.Mr. Trump has found, in Mr. Blanche, an attorney general who faced the kind of pressure that Richardson gave in to. Mr. Blanche, in order to get confirmed in a narrowly divided Senate, gave the solons more assurances than we’d have preferred. Though it’s not clear if those assurances will constrain Mr. Trump, it puts Mr. Blanche in a stronger position than that of his predecessor under Nixon. So it looks to us like Mr. Blanche is a choice, well-met.________* The Act To Establish the Department of Justice, in 1870, assigned the Attorney General some additional tasks, but did not alter the nature of his responsibilities to the president.

‘Meet’ Todd Blanche

‘Meet’ Todd Blanche

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