Todd Blanche Hates ‘Weaponization’ of Government Unless It Benefits His Boss

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he plans to nominate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to run the Justice Department on a permanent basis. That decision is not surprising given Blanche’s demonstrated eagerness to please his boss. But that same tendency is worrisome if you think the attorney general should pursue justice rather than the president’s personal grievances.

Blanche, a former federal prosecutor, represented Trump in several criminal cases, and his dogged advocacy earned him an appointment as deputy attorney general. But last year, despite the expectation that he would continue acting as the president’s personal lawyer, Blanche reportedly resisted some of the steps that Trump took in pursuing vendettas against his political opponents. In September, The New York Times reported that Blanche and Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, had “quietly questioned” the appointment of Lindsey Halligan, a Trump loyalist with no prosecutorial experience, as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Halligan’s main qualification for that job was her willingness to deliver two indictments that Trump had publicly demanded, both of which were later dismissed after a federal judge concluded that Halligan’s appointment was unlawful. One indictment charged former FBI Director James Comey with lying to Congress, while the other charged New York Attorney General Letitia James with mortgage fraud. Blanche reportedly was skeptical of the latter case, arguing that the government did not have enough evidence to charge James.

That was then. After Trump fired Bondi on April 2 and Blanche became acting attorney general, he seemed keen to ensure his permanent appointment by catering to the president’s whims.

On April 28, Blanche announced a new indictment against Comey, which absurdly alleged that he had publicly threatened to assassinate the president by using Instagram to share a photograph of seashells arranged to form the message “86 47.” That phrase, a common expression of opposition to Trump, is featured on T-shirts and bumper stickers sold by major online retailers, which also offer variations referring to former President Joe Biden (“86 46”) and to Trump during his first term (“86 45”). Although no reasonable person would claim that people who sell or buy those products are making death threats, that is the interpretation Trump favored in Comey’s case, so it was also the interpretation that Blanche endorsed.

“Threatening the life of the President of the United States is a grave violation of our nation’s laws,” Blanche declared. “The grand jury returned an indictment alleging James Comey did just that, at a time when this country has witnessed violent incitement followed by deadly actions against President Trump and other elected officials. The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable.”

Blanche later conceded that “86 47” is “posted constantly” by people who, unlike Comey, never face federal charges. But he averred that “a body of evidence” collected during an 11-month federal investigation would prove the “intent” required to convict Comey.

Given the ubiquity of “86 47” and the longstanding slang usage of eighty-six, which has various nonhomicidal meanings, no amount of evidence could make it reasonable to interpret the slogan as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm,” as the indictment describes it. This case therefore was doomed right out of the gate, even before any attempt to prove that Comey had the requisite intent.

One of the charges requires proving that Comey “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that his picture would be interpreted as a threat of violence, which is the minimum level of culpability that the Supreme Court has said is necessary to convict someone of making a “true threat.” The other charge requires more than that: Prosecutors would have to prove that Comey wanted people to understand his picture as a threat to kill the president. The doubt on both scores is reasonable, to say the least.

Yet there was Blanche, claiming with a straight face that Comey’s seashell picture, which clearly qualifies as constitutionally protected political speech, justifiably provoked an 11-month investigation culminating in an indictment that threatens him with up to 10 years in prison. It would be hard to imagine clearer evidence that Blanche is willing to subvert justice in service of the president’s grudges.

It gets worse. This week, Blanche confirmed that the Justice Department will not implement the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” described in Trump’s May 18 “settlement” of his lawsuit against the IRS. That scheme provoked political and legal backlash because it was blatantly corrupt: It was the product of a pretextual lawsuit that pitted Trump against agencies he oversees, and it was designed to benefit his allies. But Blanche still says there was nothing wrong with the idea of doling out taxpayer money to Trump supporters who claim they were persecuted by Democrats, possibly including the 1,600 or so Capitol rioters whom Trump pardoned on the the first day of his second term.

“There were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them,” Blanche said during a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. “The reasons for the fund…remain as important as they were before.”

At that level of abstraction, it is hard to disagree. But the fund’s framing indicated that the process would favor the president’s friends.

According to the settlement agreement, the fund was supposed to compensate people who were targeted by the government for “improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons.” The agreement described the fund as a response to abuses of “government power” by “Democrat elected officials, political and career employees, contractors, and agents.” Trump likewise made it clear that his goal was “helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!”

During a Senate hearing last month, Blanche nevertheless insisted that the fund was open to anyone who claims to have been a victim of “lawfare or weaponization,” regardless of his ideology or political affiliation. Even Hunter Biden, who was convicted of gun and tax charges during his father’s administration but saved by a paternal pardon, could seek compensation, Blanche said, although that “doesn’t mean the commissioners will agree.”

What about Trump supporters who committed violent crimes during the Capitol riot? “Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D–Md.) asked Blanche. “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were a victim of weaponization,” Blanche replied.

What about James Comey? The fund was supposed to “compensate people who’ve been targeted by the Justice Department for, they say, personal, political, or ideological reasons,” Comey noted after the settlement was announced. “So I’m guessing I’ll be in line. I hope I’ll be ahead of those who savagely beat police officers and sacked the Capitol.”

That joke goes to the heart of Blanche’s shameless hypocrisy. He is against weaponization of government except when it benefits his boss, in which case he is more than happy to help.

Blanche also helped Trump by issuing a May 19 addendum to the “settlement” with the IRS. That provision purports to shield Trump and his family from any IRS claims based on their past tax returns, which could save Trump more than $100 million in penalties, and from liability for any federal offenses they may have committed prior to May 19.

Like the Anti-Weaponization Fund, that jaw-dropping grant of immunity had nothing to do with Trump’s claims against the IRS, which involved an IRS contractor’s illegal disclosure of his tax returns. At Tuesday’s hearing, Blanche described the addendum as “a separate attorney general order.” But it is not clear where Blanche gets the authority to control the IRS, which is not part of the Justice Department, let alone restrain the actions of every other agency in the executive branch.

It is even more mysterious why Blanche thought settling this lawsuit required protecting the president and his family from the penalties that ordinary Americans face when they run afoul of federal law. As with Comey’s prosecution, the only plausible explanation is that Blanche is determined to do whatever the president wants, without regard to legal ethics or the obligations of his office.

The supposed justification for the immunity deal was a lawsuit in which both sides were represented by lawyers who work for Trump. And under an executive order that Trump issued in February 2025, the government’s lawyers were not allowed to “advance an interpretation of the law” that “contravenes” the president’s position. The Justice Department avoided that problem by declining to mount any defense at all, even though Trump had clearly missed the statutory deadline for filing such claims and it was questionable whether the IRS could be held liable for the conduct of a contractor it did not employ.

That bizarre situation prompted Kathleen Williams, the federal judge in Florida who oversaw Trump v. IRS, to question whether the case involved an actual controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. She ordered briefing on that issue by May 20. But because Trump dropped his lawsuit two days before the deadline, Williams never resolved that crucial question. She also never had an opportunity to review the supposed “settlement.”

Last week, in response to a May 27 motion by 35 former federal judges who urged her to reopen the case, Williams ordered a government response to their “grievous allegations.” She said the brief, which is due by June 15, should address “the charges of collusion and whether the Parties are truly adverse,” “the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the Parties,” and “the question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.'”

Williams invoked Rule 11, which aims to “deter baseless filings” by authorizing sanctions against attorneys who file claims that are legally frivolous, unsupported by evidence, or driven by “any improper purpose.” Under that rule, attorneys who submit complaints, briefs, or motions are required to “certify that the filing is not presented for any improper purpose,” Williams noted. “A party’s decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement may qualify as such an improper purpose.”

The “party” in this case, of course, is the president of the United States, who used a phony lawsuit as a pretext to extract benefits for himself, his family, and his supporters. That scam would have been impossible without Blanche’s dereliction of duty and enthusiastic cooperation in delivering the favors that Trump wanted. As Trump sees it, that performance makes Blanche eminently qualified to serve as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.