BLANCHE A DISGRACEFUL ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE

READ THE DEPARTMENT OF REVENGE

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Required reading for all senators before voting on the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General of the United States should be: “The Department of Revenge” by Devlin Barrett, a veteran prize winning Justice Department reporter, now with the New York Times.

This well documented account of what the Trump Administration has done to the Justice Department is tragic. It has lost many of its most experienced lawyers. Major departments, public integrity, civil rights, and national security have all been shredded. In the current Justice Department the only guiding principle, or priority, is what Donald Trump wants.

In reading the Department of Revenge, it’s clear no one is more culpable for the demise of an honest department than Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General and formerly Trump’s criminal defense lawyer.

The Barrett book, with specificity and attributable sources enumerates Blanche’s central complicity in two big Trump-centric scandals, in recklessly -- and lawlessly -- going after Trump’s perceived “enemies,” and establishing partisan litmus tests for Justice and the FBI.

“Todd Blanche has become the symbol of Donald Trump and his corruption,” charges Michael Luttig, in calling for the Senate to reject his nomination. Luttig is a former Court of Appeals judge, conservative, and now a champion of trying to protect the rule of law.

The Department of Justice is in bad shape, Luttig notes and if Blanche is confirmed “it will effectively bring an end to this Department of Justice.”

Trump was determined that Justice would be subservient to his wishes. After winning in 2024, his first choice for Attorney General was former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who was facing imminent House Ethics committee charges of sexual trafficking and campaign finance fraud. That was too much and the nod instead went to Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General and Trump loyalist.

Bondi was a lightweight, however, and made embarrassing mistakes relating to the files of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, a one time pal of Trump. Epstein procured young women for powerful men; Trump denied he was one of them but desperately wanted to bury the issue.

The Epstein account and most top department decisions were given to Blanche, the deputy Attorney General.

The New York Times last week revealed there was an unusual meeting in the White House situation room -- the security proof venue used for national security and intelligence matters -- to deal with Trump’s Epstein “crisis.” As well as the Vice President and top White House staff, Blanche was there and made two recommendations. The first was to request the Epstein grand jury testimony be released which he noted almost certainly would be rejected but then they could blame the judges.

The other was that he’d interview the imprisoned Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice who procured young women. Over two days Blanche threw a series of softball questions, with little follow-ups, as she exonerated Trump from bad behavior. A week later she was moved to a minimum security facility, supposed to be off limits for convicted sexual offenders, and given special favors. (A good betting pool would be to predict which day, after the midterms, Maxwell gets a pardon or commutation.)

Blanche also crafted the deal for a $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump supporting victims of “weaponization,” and barred any tax audits of Trump or his family for current or past tax returns.

This was so sordid that 35 former federal judges, of both parties, asked a judge to investigate the dubious deal.

This should be enough to disqualify Blanche. Barrett’s book outlines a pattern of politically motivated, even lawless, actions. At Trump’s insistence he forced indictments of former FBI director James Comey over the objections of experienced prosecutors who found the evidence insufficient.

The first was thrown out by a judge and the current charge is that a picture he took of a sea shell with the numbers “86 47” showed he wanted to harm the president. This one is a loser too.

Likewise, two Justice Department charges against New York Attorney General Letita James,, who had successfully sued private citizen Trump for financial fraud, were rejected by grand juries.,

Earlier, with his associate Emil Bove, Blanche forced the Manhattan U.S. Attorney to drop an indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, that actually was dependent on his cooperation with the Trump Administration.

The acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, a conservative former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, charged this was an unethical “quid pro quo” in violation of Justice Department policies.

Blanche is delivering on Trump’s obsession to get revenge against Barack Obama’s CIA director John Brennan. When the head of the national security team in Miami told Justice there was no case, Blanche had her sidelined. He brought in a political hack, Joe diGenova, to help find a way to indict Brennan.

It’s supposed to be so easy that any prosecutor could get an indictment of a “ham sandwich.” Blanche better Deli-shop as numerous grand juries have rejected flimsy political charges brought by this Justice Department.

Blanche also has overseen the departures of thousands of employees, many horrified by the politicalization of Justice, and he brags about firing hundreds of officials for doing their job in investigating and prosecuting the violent January 6 criminals who tried to overturn an election.

Barrett writes: “A Justice Department and an FBI without rules, without good judgment and without a moral compass represent a massive danger not just to Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms but also to the nation’s stability and safety.”

That’s what a Todd Blanche-led Justice Department represents.