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On Wednesday, Todd Blanche will head to Capitol Hill for a hearing on his nomination to be the attorney general of the United States. Usually these hearings are an opportunity for senators to get a sense of how the nominee would handle the job, but Blanche has already had a 100-day trial as acting attorney general, which removes some of the skepticism.
Although it is not all of them of doubt. If Blanche loses one vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be deadlocked and sink her nomination. Death of Senator Lindsey Graham leaves a vacancy on the committee, and who will fill it is not yet known, although it is likely they would vote for Blanche. The most interesting vote is that of Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican candidate who has emerged as a prominent critic of Donald Trump since he announced his retirement.
Tillis’ actions have not always been as bold as his words. He said last month that “the key for Todd, or anyone going through the Judiciary Committee, is very tight on January 6.” One might think that Blanche’s participation in Trump’s $1.8 billion fund for political associates, including January 6ers, would be an issue, but Tillis apparently does not. A federal judge today ruled harshly that the lawsuit that provided the settlement was wrong, because Trump was actually arguing against himself. Judgmentwhich mentions Blanche, should be excellent fodder for this week’s sessions.
If Blanche clears the committee, she would also have to get a majority of the full Senate, where she has a narrow margin of error. The governor of South Carolina said today that he will name his sister Graham to fill the seat, but only until she is sworn in, and as long as Mitch McConnell out of commission indefinitelyThe GOP has just a 51–47 edge in the chamber.
For most Republican senators, this will be easy yes: The President is a Republican; Blanche is his nominee, and so they will vote for her. During her time as acting attorney general, Blanche has demonstrated the same blind loyalty: If Trump, who previously retained her as a personal lawyer, tells her to do something, she does it. The past few days have shown why that is a dangerous attitude for the attorney general—and especially dangerous for free speech and a free press. Any GOP member willing to consider Blanche’s nomination on her merits should pay close attention.
Last week, Trump returned home from a summit in Turkey that is not his a new conflict of interest in the air but on one of the old planes that also serves as Air Force One. The New York Times information that this is because the new plane, provided by Qatar, does not have the same “self-defense mechanisms” as the old plane, including “higher anti-missile capabilities.” at the end of the week, Times revealed that Blanche’s Law Department had it summons issued to four of the magazine’s writers, sending federal agents to some of their homes. The administration wants to compel them to testify about how they learned about the security vulnerabilities.
This is the latest in a series of attempts to clamp down on journalists. In January, when Blanche was deputy attorney general, the FBI raided the home of a Washington Post the authorto find evidence in the investigation of a contractor suspected of leaking. Two judges have ruled that the government cannot search for data and criticize his method. In May, the department subpoenaed the records of The Wall Street Journal journaliststrying to find the source of the leak about Trump’s war planning in Iran, and more Post it a journalist who had written about the annexation of Venezuela. In June, the DOJ withdrew the call. (FBI Director Kash Patel has also sued Atlantic and my colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick above reporting on his leadership in that officeand is reported opened a criminal investigation in it.)
These are common cases of attacking, or at least threatening to arrest, the messenger. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice he said that “journalists are not the target, those who leak classified information,” but in practice this is a meaningless distinction. If journalists leave their sources, they will violate the agreement they have made, which will make it difficult for them to get important information to the public in the near future, but if they refuse, they can be fined or jailed.
The driving force behind these subpoenas is Trump. CNN reported in May that the president wrote Treason in Sharpie on a letter to Blanche and a bunch of articles about the Iran war. Shortly thereafter, the DOJ issued a subpoena. The Times also information that a fiery Trump summoned Patel to the White House to oversee the investigation into the Air Force One leak, prompting the latest subpoena. In the past, senior Justice Department officials have resigned or threatened to resign under political pressure from the White House—including in cases less direct than the president ordering the attorney general to call reporters about stories that made him look bad. But Blanche has not only followed; he has been happy to defend these measures publicly.
After WSJ Subpoenas are public, Blanche published on X that “prosecuting the leakers who share our nation’s secrets with journalists, thus endangering our nation’s security and the lives of our soldiers, is a priority of this administration.” The idea that domestic opposition to war represents a threat to soldiers is hard to take seriously. Even hard to believe it was comments that Blanche gave to reporters last month. “We really value and appreciate the role that journalists play,” he said. “I have such an important responsibility to make sure that the people who are entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they are supposed to do with that information which, spoiler alert, means not sharing it with the press.” The regime’s approach suggests that it cares more about embarrassment than security concerns, and cares more about leaks than substance.
Balancing issues of national security and media freedom is always a difficult transition, but faced with a choice between frustrating the political goals of the president she serves and suppressing a free press, Blanche has shown that she will not hesitate to choose the latter. My colleagues Jonathan Chait and Quinta Jurecic have explained some of the reasons why the nomination is troubling, but this week, Blanche’s actions make the case clear.
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Today’s news
- A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration followed that of President Trump a lawsuit against the IRS for “bad faith” for “conducting a judicial process,” ordering sanctions against several people involved, including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and referring one of Trump’s lawyers to the Florida bar. In the order, the judge said the case was designed to legalize contracts that give Trump-related entities and individuals immunity rather than resolve a legal dispute.
- United States and Iran they traded another round of strikes overnight. Trump announced that he was reimposing a US naval blockade on Iranian ports and proposed a 20 percent tariff on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
- ICE officer shot a 26-year-old man during a pursuit in Biddeford, Maine, after he tried to drive his car toward officers, authorities say, marking the agency’s second use of force in a week.
Dispatches
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Fulvio De Bonis finds a way to say yes to such challenges, which lie somewhere between a logistical problem and a diplomatic decision.
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this magazine.
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