The New York City Bar Association Monday urged the U.S. Senate to vote down Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s pick to fill the attorney general opening left by his April firing of former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying its members have no faith in Blanche’s ability to lead an ethical and independent Justice Department.
The City Bar said they believed Blanche, who has previously served as the deputy attorney general and is currently serving as acting attorney general, prioritizes Trump’s interests over the interests of the country. The group alleges Blanche has used his positions to carry out politically motivated prosecutions, fired U.S. attorneys who prosecuted people who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and has failed to respect the Constitutional rights of people protesting “widespread abuses” by ICE officers.
Blanche previously represented Trump in cases over his alleged actions interfering with the 2020 election and hush money he allegedly paid porn star Stormy Daniels.
“The Attorney General must ensure that the legal judgments of the Department of Justice are ‘impartial and insulated from political influence’ so that the Department’s ‘investigatory and prosecutorial powers [are] exercised free from partisan consideration,’” the City Bar writes. “The Attorney General must therefore be a lawyer of both demonstrated professional excellence and unquestionable ethical standards that assure his commitment to justice and loyalty to the United States Constitution, and not to either his personal interests or those of the President.”
“Todd Blanche fails to meet this standard,” The bar association concludes. “Despite his formal credentials, Mr. Blanche’s actions … have repeatedly demonstrated that his primary loyalty is not to the United States Constitution or the rule of law but to President Donald J. Trump … As a result, his actions have been detrimental to the Department of Justice and the rule of law.”
Confirmation hearings for Blanche, whose nomination and actions as acting AG have received pushback from Democratic politicians, are set for July 15 and 16. A vote is expected later this month.
The bar association highlighted Blanche’s recent handling of a settlement in the recent case Trump v. IRS that would have created a nearly $2 billion slush fund to “compensate ‘victims’ of past government enforcement actions, including convicted January 6 participants,” and other Trump political allies who’d found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Rather than contest the case like IRS guidance asked, Blanche directed the department to settle the case in Trump’s favor. It says both the settlement and slush fund were improper actions that benefited Trump, not the public, which Blanche was theoretically representing on behalf of the IRS.
The organization also said it believes Blanche is and will place Trump’s interests over the public’s in handling the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, as Trump, his former client, is named in over 5,000 of the Epstein files.
“Blanche assumed a leading and undisclosed role in seeking to protect President Trump individually from unflattering or potentially incriminating disclosures in connection with the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein,” the bar association writes. “As Acting Attorney General, Mr. Blanche met privately with a small number of senior White House staff in the secure White House “situation room” for the purpose of planning strategy to protect the President from any compromising disclosures in the then still-secret Epstein files.”
The City Bar isn’t the first legal group to sound the alarm over Blanche serving as attorney general. Over 100 current and former federal judges and pro-democracy groups sent a June letter to New York’s court system calling for an ethics investigation into Blanche, whose license to practice law falls under the New York State Bar.
The judges raised similar concerns in their 73-page missive as the City Bar, saying they thought Blanche’s handling of the IRS case was improper and his past representation of Trump would cloud his judgment when handling other matters, like the Epstein files.
“Time and again, acting AG Blanche has prioritized Donald Trump’s personal agenda over the non-partisan integrity demanded by his oath of office,” the judges wrote last month.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.