{"id":294876,"date":"2026-07-13T21:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/294876\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:26:07","slug":"nyc-bar-association-tells-u-s-senate-to-reject-todd-blanche-trumps-attorney-general-nominee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/294876\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Bar Association tells U.S. Senate to reject Todd Blanche, Trump\u2019s attorney general nominee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York City Bar Association Monday urged<\/a> the U.S. Senate to vote down Todd Blanche<\/a>, President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to fill the attorney general opening left by his April firing of former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a>, saying its members have no faith in Blanche\u2019s ability to lead an ethical and independent Justice Department.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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 \u201cwidespread abuses\u201d by ICE officers.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Attorney General must ensure that the legal judgments of the Department of Justice are \u2018impartial and insulated from political influence\u2019 so that the Department\u2019s \u2018investigatory and prosecutorial powers [are] exercised free from partisan consideration,\u2019\u201d the City Bar writes. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTodd Blanche fails to meet this standard,\u201d The bar association concludes. \u201cDespite his formal credentials, Mr. Blanche\u2019s actions \u2026 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 \u2026 As a result, his actions have been detrimental to the Department of Justice and the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confirmation hearings for Blanche, whose nomination and actions as acting AG have received pushback<\/a> from Democratic politicians, are set for July 15 and 16. A vote is expected later this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bar association highlighted Blanche\u2019s recent handling of a settlement in the recent case Trump v. IRS that would have created a nearly $2 billion slush fund<\/a> to \u201ccompensate \u2018victims\u2019 of past government enforcement actions, including convicted January 6 participants,\u201d and other Trump political allies who\u2019d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The organization also said it believes Blanche is and will place Trump\u2019s interests over the public\u2019s in handling the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, as Trump, his former client, is named in over 5,000 of the Epstein files.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlanche 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,\u201d the bar association writes. \u201cAs Acting Attorney General, Mr. Blanche met privately with a small number of senior White House staff in the secure White House \u201csituation room\u201d for the purpose of planning strategy to protect the President from any compromising disclosures in the then still-secret Epstein files.\u201d<\/p>\n

The City Bar isn\u2019t 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\u2019s court system<\/a> calling for an ethics investigation into Blanche, whose license to practice law falls under the New York State Bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The judges raised similar concerns in their 73-page missive<\/a> as the City Bar, saying they thought Blanche\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTime and again, acting AG Blanche has prioritized Donald Trump\u2019s personal agenda over the non-partisan integrity demanded by his oath of office,\u201d the judges wrote last month.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York City Bar Association Monday urged the U.S. Senate to vote down Todd Blanche, President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2710,9,56,63,85593,65,64,896,52861],"class_list":["post-294876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-bar-association","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-todd-blanche"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}