1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

As your constituent, I am writing to urge you to vote no on confirming Todd Blanche as Attorney General. The nation's chief law enforcement officer must uphold equal justice under the law rather than treat the Department of Justice as an instrument of personal and political loyalty. Mr. Blanche's record and confirmation hearing testimony show he cannot be trusted with that responsibility. 1. Defends pardons for cop assaulters, while claiming to oppose the same violence: Under questioning from Senator Chris Coons, Mr. Blanche called Trump's blanket January 6th pardons, which included 169 people who pled guilty to assaulting police officers, "very generous." In the same hearing, he testified it was "absolutely" right that violent January 6th rioters were prosecuted and said assaults on law enforcement "should never be tolerated." He never explained how he squares defending clemency for those same offenders with that stated principle. 2. Signals DOJ will be used for political vengeance: When Senate Republicans raised the disclosure that former Special Counsel Jack Smith's team had accessed text messages belonging to 44 members of Congress, Mr. Blanche signaled he is open to a criminal investigation of Smith over his congressional testimony. Turning the Justice Department's investigative power against the prosecutor who investigated Trump, rather than maintaining prosecutorial independence, is exactly the kind of political weaponization the Attorney General is supposed to prevent. 3. Rigged a lawsuit against his own government to buy Trump immunity: Mr. Blanche's DOJ settled a $10 billion suit Trump filed against the IRS he controls, a suit Trump's own lawyers voluntarily dismissed to avoid judicial scrutiny. A federal judge later ruled the entire lawsuit was brought in "bad faith" to "manipulate the judicial process," referred Trump's attorney to the Florida Bar for discipline, and sent the ruling to the New York and D.C. bars where disciplinary complaints against Blanche and another DOJ official are already pending. The $1.8 billion fund tied to the deal has since collapsed under public pressure, but the tax-related immunity Blanche granted Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization remains in a legal gray zone, neither confirmed nor struck down. 4. Stonewalled the Epstein files: A federal judge ruled in June 2026 that the DOJ under Blanche conceded it violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Epstein survivors have publicly described the department's rollout of the files as slow and poorly handled, with redactions that exposed victims' names while obscuring information about others connected to the case. 5. Still represents Trump, not the public: Mr. Blanche testified that his attorney-client relationship with President Trump remains active. An Attorney General who is simultaneously the President's former personal criminal defense lawyer, and has not fully severed that relationship, cannot credibly claim independence when investigating the president's allies or adversaries. Real law and order means prosecuting violence against police consistently, respecting the independence of career prosecutors, releasing what the law requires released, and ensuring no one, including the president's own former lawyer, is above scrutiny. Todd Blanche's record shows he will not keep the justice system independent. Please vote no on his confirmation.