Todd Blanche Vowed Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis Will Face ‘Justice’: Can He Pull It Off and Become Attorney General?

The installation of Attorney General Todd Blanche as America’s top law enforcement official — on an interim basis — marks the first time a president’s defense attorney has risen to be the most powerful prosecutor in the land. He is a formidable candidate to secure a permanent post.Mr. Blanche succeeded the erstwhile attorney general, Pam Bondi, who was fired last week. Mr. Blanche is serving on an acting basis, while Mr. Trump mulls whether to nominate him for full enthronement or if he’ll choose someone else. The Times calls him the “architect of the president’s scorched-earth legal strategy,” and Politico reckons that in the race for the job he is the “lead horse.” The Times also likes his chances, calling the job of attorney general as “Mr. Blanche’s to lose.” The lawyer defended Mr. Trump in three criminal cases — both of those levied by Special Counsel Jack Smith, and the one prosecuted by Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Mr. Smith’s cases were dismissed, but the hush money one yielded 34 convictions. Mr. Trump — who was convicted before he won reelection and sentenced after — was given a “conditional discharge” in the case, which meant no punishment. In part because he remains a convicted felon, Mr. Trump is appealing.Mr. Blanche is hardly alone as a candidate for the job. Other names that have been bandied about are the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin —Mr. Trump has called him “our secret weapon” — Senator Mike Lee, and the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon. She has taken the lead in the Trump Administration’s push against universities and is being promoted to associate attorney general, the department’s third highest position. One Republican lawmaker, Congressman Chip Roy, tells Fox News that regardless of who gets the permanent job “We want to see heads roll. The next attorney general needs to be very aggressive.” Ms. Bondi struggled to competently carry out Mr. Trump’s agenda at the DOJ, which during the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Trump and his supporters with criminal prosecutions that, in the case of some of Mr. Trump’s advisers and his January 6 supporters, led to prison time. Mr. Trump has since pardoned almost all of those affected. Mr. Blanche was a partner at the prestigious Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft law firm, the oldest continuously operating law firm in America which recently agreed to merge with a larger firm, but went out on his own after the firm demurred from representing Mr. Trump in the hush money case.Unlike Ms. Bondi, who served as Florida’s attorney general, which brought with it significant prosecutorial experience, but at a state level, Mr. Blache has experience as a federal prosecutor. He worked in the Southern District of New York for eight years. Unlike many other attorneys in that prestigious office, Mr. Blanche’s resume lacks any Ivy. The Denver native e began at Louisiana State University, transferred to Beloit College, graduated from American University and then Brooklyn Law School, taking classes at night and working by day. Republican attorneys generals have attended a wide variety of law schools, many of them public, while Democratic attorney generals have almost universally attended Harvard or Yale Law Schools.Since joining the Trump Administration Mr. Blanche has emerged as a pugnacious defender of the 47th president’s agenda, both online and in person. At the Conservative Political Action Conference last week he signaled that federal investigations into Mr. Bragg and the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, could be looming. He declares that “the Democrat machine tried for years to put President Trump and his associates in jail. They did everything in their power to destroy livelihoods, reputations, and families. They weaponized the government.” One foe of Mr. Blanche is the influencer Laura Loomer, known to have the president’s ear. She calls Mr. Blanche a “hardcore” Democrat —he was registered with that party before he took on Mr. Trump as a client — and ventures that “We will never see President Trump’s accountability agenda enforced at the DOJ unless this changes immediately.” Mr. Blanche, though, could find it difficult to distance himself from the failures that doomed Ms. Bondi’s tenure. He told Fox’s Jesse Watters on Friday that “to the extent the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.” His predecessor’s handling of the Epstein issue is widely seen as contributing to Mr. Trump telling her last week that “it’s time” for her to depart.Another blemish on the tenure of Ms. Bondi — and by extension, her top deputy, Mr. Blanche — is the failure to convict some key defendants. Criminal cases against the fired FBI director James Comey and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, were both dismissed when the lead prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was found to have been unlawfully appointed. New criminal referrals against Ms. James, directed to prosecutors who have been confirmed, suggest that the DOJ has learned from that misstep. The Weaponization Working Group convened by Ms. Bondi to probe, among other targets, Messrs. Bragg and Smith and Ms. James, reportedly met in Mr. Blanche’s office at the DOJ. One source tells New York Magazine that despite the new attorney general’s general reputation for caution he “wants to put people in jail.”

Todd Blanche Vowed Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis Will Face ‘Justice’: Can He Pull It Off and Become Attorney General?

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