Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has rejected the idea that the Department of Justice is pursuing Donald Trump’s enemies while at the same time claiming the president has a “right” and “duty” to investigate and prosecute his political foes.
Blanche, the president’s former criminal defense attorney, is serving as interim attorney general after the president fired Pam Bondi last week. Trump had appointed Blanche to serve as deputy attorney general last year.
Asked during his first public appearance as the nation’s top law enforcement officer how he intends to balance Trump’s demands for politically charged prosecutions while ending the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, Blanche did not dispute the premise of the question.
“We have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country, and it is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the past has issues with and he believes should be investigated,” Blanche said Tuesday.
“That is his right and indeed it is his duty to do that — meaning, to lead this country,” he added. “I do not view this as pressure. I do not view this as something that keeps me up at night.”
Blanche also defended his recent boast that the DOJ removed dozens of career prosecutors and federal agents who were involved in investigations against Trump.
“If you were a prosecutor, and you were trying to prosecute your boss, you have ethical duties as a lawyer that I think prevent you from continuing to work in that environment,” Blanche told reporters Tuesday.
“What we saw, and what President Trump went through — every single prosecutor in this department … you have a duty to do the right thing,” he said. “You have prosecutors who are absolutely not doing the right thing. ... What happened the last four years is something that will never happen again.”
But Blanche also said he would be willing to look into any criminal referrals coming directly from the White House.
“As far as whether we would take a referral from the White House, or a referral from you, even — yes,” he told reporters. “I hope the attorney general would absolutely say, ‘Yes, we’ll investigate that.’”
He rejected the idea that there is a “firewall” between the DOJ and the White House.
“That is the most false statement I have ever heard in my life,” he said. “There is always communication between a president and his priorities and what the Department of Justice should be focused on and not focused on. That is not a new thing in this administration.”
Critics have long argued that Bondi’s leadership shattered the Justice Department’s historic independence from political influence, acting instead as a tool of the White House.
The Justice Department, after Trump publicly urged Bondi to pursue cases against his political opponents, has tried to bring cases against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
The department has also defended the president’s attempts to sanction law firms that worked for Democratic figures and causes, pursued cases against states and institutions allegedly violating the president’s anti-transgender and anti-diversity mandates, and launched probes into the results of the 2020 election.
Blanche is among several of Trump’s former personal attorneys who have joined the administration in roles that have been used to unwind federal investigations once targeting their former client.
The acting attorney general served as the lead defense counsel in Trump’s hush money trial in New York in 2024 and was on legal teams defending the president in his two federal indictments.
Despite Blanche’s defense, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a scheme to influence the 2016 election by burying embarrassing stories about his alleged affairs. Trump evaded a criminal penalty, but remains a convicted felon.
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