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From Trump’s Attorney to Attorney General: The Rise of Todd Blanche

29 min episode · 2 min read
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Episode

29 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Career Growth, Relationships, Fundraising & VC

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • The loyalty bet: Blanche left a prestigious white-shoe law firm in 2017 to represent Trump when the former president appeared to be a losing cause. This willingness to absorb professional risk at Trump's lowest moment created the personal bond that ultimately elevated Blanche to the top of the Department of Justice, illustrating how Trump rewards unconditional loyalty over legal credentials.
  • Stall-and-brawl legal strategy: Blanche's core tactic across Trump's federal cases was deliberate delay — filing briefs written like political statements to trigger mandatory judicial review timelines, stretching proceedings month after month. The strategy required no courtroom brilliance, only patience. It succeeded entirely: both federal cases collapsed when Trump won reelection and a sitting president cannot be federally indicted.
  • DOJ restructuring playbook: Within the first six weeks of Blanche's tenure, the National Security Division was effectively dismantled and the Public Integrity Unit was reduced from 30 staffers to 2. Blanche and deputy Emil Beauvais systematically fired or marginalized career staff connected to the Jack Smith investigations, treating prior DOJ service on those cases as disqualifying.
  • The moderating role argument: Blanche's confirmation strategy rests on a single claim: he prevents worse outcomes. Documented examples include advising against prosecuting Fed Chair Jerome Powell, sidelining DOJ official Ed Martin for publicly disclosing grand jury testimony, and warning Trump that prosecuting Letitia James and James Comey carried near-zero conviction probability — advice Trump initially ignored before those cases collapsed.
  • Confirmation math: One Republican vote against Blanche on the Senate Judiciary Committee kills the nomination in committee. Senator John Cornyn, ousted in his primary partly due to Trump's opposition, remains uncommitted and objects specifically to a DOJ agreement granting Trump and his family immunity from IRS tax investigations — a deal Blanche has refused to walk back, unlike the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

What It Covers

NYT reporter Glenn Thrush traces Todd Blanche's path from federal prosecutor to Trump's personal defense attorney to acting Attorney General, examining how Blanche's high-stakes bet on Trump at his lowest point shaped the DOJ's unprecedented loss of independence and now threatens his own Senate confirmation.

Key Questions Answered

  • The loyalty bet: Blanche left a prestigious white-shoe law firm in 2017 to represent Trump when the former president appeared to be a losing cause. This willingness to absorb professional risk at Trump's lowest moment created the personal bond that ultimately elevated Blanche to the top of the Department of Justice, illustrating how Trump rewards unconditional loyalty over legal credentials.
  • Stall-and-brawl legal strategy: Blanche's core tactic across Trump's federal cases was deliberate delay — filing briefs written like political statements to trigger mandatory judicial review timelines, stretching proceedings month after month. The strategy required no courtroom brilliance, only patience. It succeeded entirely: both federal cases collapsed when Trump won reelection and a sitting president cannot be federally indicted.
  • DOJ restructuring playbook: Within the first six weeks of Blanche's tenure, the National Security Division was effectively dismantled and the Public Integrity Unit was reduced from 30 staffers to 2. Blanche and deputy Emil Beauvais systematically fired or marginalized career staff connected to the Jack Smith investigations, treating prior DOJ service on those cases as disqualifying.
  • The moderating role argument: Blanche's confirmation strategy rests on a single claim: he prevents worse outcomes. Documented examples include advising against prosecuting Fed Chair Jerome Powell, sidelining DOJ official Ed Martin for publicly disclosing grand jury testimony, and warning Trump that prosecuting Letitia James and James Comey carried near-zero conviction probability — advice Trump initially ignored before those cases collapsed.
  • Confirmation math: One Republican vote against Blanche on the Senate Judiciary Committee kills the nomination in committee. Senator John Cornyn, ousted in his primary partly due to Trump's opposition, remains uncommitted and objects specifically to a DOJ agreement granting Trump and his family immunity from IRS tax investigations — a deal Blanche has refused to walk back, unlike the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

Notable Moment

Blanche warned the White House that prosecuting New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey would almost certainly fail before a Virginia jury. Trump proceeded anyway. Both cases collapsed, validating Blanche's assessment — yet his advice went unheeded in real time.

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Episode Transcript

With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep. Even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com/bankguy. Capital One NA, member FDIC. From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is An Alien. To be confirmed as the next Attorney General, Todd Blanch must convince members of the US Senate that despite how political the Department of Justice has now become, it would be even worse without him at the top. Today, as his confirmation hearings begin, my colleague Glenn Thrush recounts the unlikely story of how Blanche became Trump's legal enforcer. It's Wednesday, July 15. Hey, Glenn. Hello. Good morning to you, sir. Good morning to you, sir. Is there an echo in here? Is there an echo in here? Alright. Well, on to business. Glenn, in a few hours, Wednesday morning, the senate judiciary committee is scheduled to begin confirmation hearings for president Trump's next pick to be his attorney general, Todd Blanch. And increasingly, it looks like this hearing is going to be pretty complicated and the outcome genuinely uncertain? We're at a pretty precarious moment for the Department of Justice and for Todd Blanch. Over the past six weeks, really at president Trump's prompting, Blanch oversaw the creation of this incredibly controversial and highly unusual $1,800,000,000 fund to compensate purported victims of Biden and Obama era justice department overreach. Mhmm. The j six defendants and people who were subject to other investigations. And in late May, the senate Republicans just had it. They called in Blanche, and for about an hour, grilled him, lambasted him, told him it was totally unacceptable. So the dynamic here is the Republicans in the senate have been incredibly skeptical of recent moves that Blanche has made in coordination with Trump. Now Blanche has spent the better part of a month trying to clean that stuff up, but there are still several members in the senate and a couple of members on the senate judiciary committee who really have serious tough questions for him. And this is really a first for someone who is facing cabinet scrutiny. What do you mean a first? We're just in a totally different environment than the first wave of Trump cabinet nominees. They all basically got a pass. There was some tough questioning, but that was a period of time early on when Republicans were just inclined to line up and give the president as much authority as possible. We're long past that, and the gravitational pull of the midterm elections is forcing a lot of these Republicans who had been in line to start raising some serious questions. So there's …

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