Bob and Jack discuss President Trump’s nomination of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the current acting attorney general, to become Attorney General. They review Blanche’s record at DOJ, including his role in political weaponization, ethics concerns, and the fallout from the proposed Anti-Weaponization Fund. They also examine why Trump is forcing a confirmation fight when Blanche could plausibly lead the Justice Department for the rest of Trump’s term without Senate confirmation. What’s at stake, they discuss, is whether the Senate will endorse, and thus take responsibility for, Trump’s DOJ weaponization campaign.
Mentioned:
“The High Stakes of the Blanche Nomination” by Bob Bauer (Executive Functions, June 9, 2026)
Thumbnail: President Trump participates in an Oval Office press conference with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, October 15, 2025. (Official White House Photo.)
This is an edited transcript of an episode of “Executive Functions Chat.” You can listen to the full conversation by following or subscribing to the show on Substack, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jack Goldsmith: Good morning, Bob.
Bob Bauer: Good morning, Jack.
Today we’re going to talk about President Trump’s nomination of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his defense lawyer in three of his criminal cases, to be the attorney general.
Blanche was an assistant U.S. attorney for eight years in the Southern District of New York. He was confirmed last year to be the deputy attorney general, which he has been for almost 18 months. That background would normally qualify him for the job as a formal matter, but does that mean he’s qualified for the job?
No. No, and I think there’s been a very strong reaction, certainly doubts also expressed on the Republican side, and it’s based on both his performance as deputy attorney general and then subsequently his performance as acting attorney general, which has appeared to be a wholesale commitment—whatever doubts he may be expressing privately, a wholesale commitment—to doing what Donald Trump wants done, with a particular emphasis on pursuing this very flagrant program of weaponization.
And it has turned out, if one is to credit press reports, that while there was some thought that, with his experience, he would bring a certain sobriety into the Department of Justice and resist the expanded weaponization, aggressive weaponization, within the department, it then developed that he wasn’t going to do that and that he was going to proceed.
Topped off—although that’s not the only point that we can discuss—by his attempting to put into place, and since apparently on his part abandoned (it’s not clear what the president thinks), this massive Anti-Weaponization Fund that would be used to compensate allies of the president who claim that they were targeted by Democrats in the prior administration.
So the Anti-Weaponization Fund matter seems, in the press reports I’ve read, to be the thing that concerns the senators the most, and I worry a little bit that that’s going to become too much the focus of this because that’s easily expendable, and in fact it might be on the way to being expended.
Can you just summarize some of the other types of weaponization, inappropriate weaponization, that you think Blanche has supervised or approved or been involved in?
Yes. So let’s begin with one case that was dismissed, which was the prosecution of Letitia James, the state attorney general in New York, who was targeted by Bill Pulte. And we’ll come back to Bill Pulte, whose appointment to be—or designation to be—Acting Director of National Intelligence is still pending.
And apparently internally, Blanche expressed some doubts, again according to press reports, about the case against James, but it was brought anyway, and then it was dismissed.
Again, in the case of James Comey, the president has tried repeatedly to direct the Department to successfully prosecute Jim Comey. One such case was dismissed. Most recently—and this is directly on Blanche as acting attorney general—Comey was indicted for arranging seashells on the seashore in the form of 86-47, which was interpreted, against all reasonable assessments of what that term means and how it’s typically used, as a call to commit violence against Donald Trump.
Nobody that I have seen, whether it’s Andrew McCarthy in the National Review or any other commentary across the range—across the whole range of commentary—takes this case seriously, but it was brought, consistent with the president’s just absolute Ahab commitment to getting Jim Comey.
And there are apparently weaponization prosecutions in the making that Blanche is overseeing against former CIA Director John Brennan and former witness against him in the January 6th matter, Cassidy Hutchinson.
So it’s a pretty dismal record of weaponization and support for weaponization. And that, it seems to me—and I agree with you—is a much broader story than merely the establishment of the Anti-Weaponization Fund.
What about—you wrote earlier this week about Blanche’s failure to recuse himself from cases and perhaps an ethical violation. Can you explain that?
Yes. So he came to the office, obviously it’s the president’s choice, as were other senior-level appointments to the Department of Justice, because he had served the president as personal counsel in recent years in these high-profile investigations: Jan. 6th, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, the Bragg prosecution in Manhattan.
And the question was, given his involvement with the president, the deep professional commitment that he’s had over these years, in what circumstances would he recuse himself from matters that involve Donald Trump? Whether we’re talking about deeply personal and significant politically explosive matters like Epstein, all the way to matters that touch upon weaponization, like Jan. 6th.
And he was evasive about the commitment that he would make. He was confirmed, nonetheless.
There is virtually no evidence that he has pursued a serious recusal policy consistent with the recusal standards both traditionally followed by the department and, in one way or another, captured in its ethics rules and handbook.
And I think it’s fairly clear that on anything that the president really, really cares about, the department will clear the way for Blanche to act. I should add that clearance has been made all the easier because the ethical enforcement infrastructure of the department has been taken down.
The president fired the Senate-confirmed director of the Office of Government Ethics. The Department of Justice dismissed the most senior DOJ official responsible for ethics compliance, by the way, just a few months after he had counseled Blanche, according to reports, and other members of the president’s former legal team who are now at the Department of Justice, that they would have to recuse themselves in matters involving Donald Trump.
So there really are no firewalls, no indication that he’s asking for ethics advice, or that the ethics advice being given to him is independent rather than simply configured to allow him to do what the president wishes.
Let me just clarify one thing. I don’t know if you just said this, but during his confirmation hearings to be deputy attorney general, was this an issue, the question of whether he would comply with the recusal norms of the Justice Department?
Yes.
Did he make representations about that?
Yes, I should be clear. He said he would—he was asked about that. It was obviously a major issue, given his service as lead counsel in these key representations of the president in prior years.
And he basically said, you know, he would consult with ethics officials, he would consult. So he left himself open the discretion of whether to consult or not.
And then he would take action essentially at his discretion, you know, consistent with, as he put it, ethical standards.
But he refused to be pinned down to any kind of categorical recusal in matters that involved Donald Trump personally, precisely the kind of matters on which he’d represented him in the past.
Okay.
So there are many interesting things about the nomination. One is, in a way, it’s unnecessary.
Blanche could serve as the effective attorney general for the rest of Donald Trump’s second term. Right now, because the attorney general stepped down, there’s a DOJ succession statute that says—and I’m going to read it here; this is 28 U.S. Code § 508—the deputy attorney general may exercise all the duties of the office of the attorney general.
And a plausible, if not the best, reading of that is that it is without term—that he can basically, as deputy, exercise all the powers of the attorney general independent of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act time limitations.
But even under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, if he became acting attorney general, the time limits could be manipulated in a way where he could continue to serve out, basically exercising the functions of the attorney general.
So in some sense, this is an unnecessary nomination if Trump wanted Blanche running the department, which means Trump, I think it’s fair to say, wanted this fight, or at least wanted to reward Blanche’s loyalty.
But I imagine that there are a lot of senators who don’t want to have to take this vote. What does it mean that Trump wanted to trigger a confirmation fight?
It seems that he wants to, in effect, challenge the Senate to either endorse or reject his choice of somebody who will be faithful to that weaponization program and do as the president directs in full control of the Department of Justice.
He wants to take that model and have it validated by the Senate.
He didn’t have to do this, as you pointed out. He could accomplish all his objectives without doing it, but he’s doing it.
And all of this at the same time, by the way, as he’s pursued—maybe with, it looks like perhaps not with success, but we’ll see—this avenue of weaponization through the designation of Bill Pulte to be acting director of national intelligence.
So we’re talking about a particular model, a particular structure for the Department of Justice that he has been very open and aggressive about, promoted on Truth Social, with no question whatsoever how he views what the Department of Justice owes him and what kind of policies or approaches, like weaponization, it pursues.
And he wants the Senate to confirm not just Blanche, but that particular model for the Department of Justice.
Right. So it seems to me that is what’s at stake here. This is the big issue.
When Attorney General Bondi and Blanche were confirmed last year, there were hints that there might be counter-weaponization or weaponization and the like. I don’t think anyone fully understood the extent of it, or certainly it has been relentless and very imaginative and aggressive since then.
So the Senate confirmed him last year, but now, a year and a bit later, there’s an extensive record of the way that Donald Trump has wanted to run the Justice Department, and it’s been done.
And so now, if the Senate confirms Blanche, it’s not just confirming someone as attorney general; it’s endorsing Trump weaponization.
That’s what’s at stake in the Senate confirmation: whether the Senate will exercise what I believe are its responsibilities to ensure that law enforcement isn’t abused. This is one very important check on that.
Now, to be clear, Blanche is going to be acting as attorney general one way or the other, but the question is whether the Senate will endorse what’s been going on.
Yes. And maybe there are signs that this particular hope on the president’s part will be frustrated.
The U.S. Senate is currently in conflict over the Pulte nomination, and it has resulted in a stalemate over authorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
And it now appears that, with the nomination of what I think is to be the formally nominated and confirmed head of national intelligence, there’s an effort underway to try to address objections to Pulte and to keep Pulte out of ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In fact, Clayton’s hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. And the Democrats apparently are making it clear that they expect him to be confirmed before the 19th, when the president has indicated that he expects Pulte to assume the acting director’s responsibilities at that office.
And so the question is: Will similar types of Senate pressure be applied here to the Blanche nomination?
So just a couple of points on that that I’ve read in the last few days. Senator Grassley, who’s the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a year ago Blanche was approved, and I don’t think anything’s changed.
So Senator Grassley, anyway, seems prepared to—if he thinks nothing material has changed—he seems to think that the weaponization is not relevant, and he’s prepared to vote to confirm Blanche. That’s what it sounds like to me.
But there are also, I count, at least three senators—sitting senators—whose careers Trump has effectively ended in the last year: Senator Tom Tillis, Senator John Cornyn, and Senator Bill Cassidy.
It’ll be interesting to see if they vote to confirm. I think it’s going to take four Republican defections, given the vice president’s vote. It’ll take four Republican defections, at least, to kill the nomination.
Also, I think Senator Tillis, on the Judiciary Committee, could vote to keep it from getting out of committee, which would either kill it or make it very difficult.
And then there’s Senator Collins of Maine. I don’t know how she’s going to vote on this, but I expect she’s not looking forward to voting either way on it. Senator Murkowski. Senator Young from Indiana has been very opposed to the weaponization slush fund and has been kind of a rule-of-law person on these issues. I don’t know how he’ll vote.
So any prognosis about how this will play out?
No. The Grassley comment was remarkable, by the way.
But I would add Mitch McConnell to your list. He was extremely critical of the establishment of the fund.
And I think the question is going to be: Are the Republicans going to be successful with messaging that this is all about the weaponization fund? And if all doubts about that are resolved and it’s taken down, then they’re prepared to have a hearing in which Blanche makes the usual anodyne commitments, one way or the other, about impartiality and keeping politics out of law enforcement; they pronounce themselves satisfied with the answers, and they confirm him.
Or will that larger picture that you’ve drawn about what’s really at stake here be the one they consider?
I just want to add this one last comment on this. Congress has to consider—and I think it does, by the way, I should say—what weaponization in the hands of a president, so brazenly and aggressively pursued, means for the separation of powers in our scheme of government.
This president has made it clear already in the exercise of the pardon power, if you will, on the other end, that he’s prepared to exercise it to benefit Republicans.
Weaponization likewise, just as he’s deployed it to attack other enemies, could be deployed against people who are thwarting his plans in Congress on either side of the aisle—maybe predominantly Democrats, but potentially also Republicans.
There are huge institutional stakes in taking a stand against this kind of weaponization of the Department of Justice.
I couldn’t agree more.
I mean, I do fear it’s going to be too much focused on the weaponization fund and not the broader weaponization.
In my view, really, the independence and integrity of the Senate is at stake here. And basically, the Senate will be assuming responsibility for, and endorsing, Trump-style weaponization if it confirms Blanche.
And I think that’s exactly what the president wants. And that’s exactly, in my view, why he nominated him.
Yes, absolutely. And endorsing, basically, the general principle.
And then even on the more specific or narrow question of recusals, endorsing a program of having essentially the entire system for monitoring conflicts of interest, at the most extreme end, completely taken down.
Okay. Thanks very much. We’ll see what happens.
Thank you.
