The President’s Personal Lawyer Should Not Run the Justice Department

I’m asking Congress to address what I consider an extraordinary and dangerous conflict of interest at the Department of Justice. Todd Blanche is now Attorney General of the United States. Immediately before joining the Trump administration, Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal criminal-defense attorney. He represented Trump in three criminal cases brought against him in 2023 and 2024. He now runs the Department of Justice. Even more concerning, since becoming Attorney General, Blanche has declined to pledge that the Justice Department will operate independently of President Trump and has indicated that the President’s views can be considered in decisions about prosecutions. This is an extraordinary erosion of the boundary between a President’s personal interests and federal law enforcement. The Attorney General controls a department with enormous investigative and prosecutorial power. The person exercising that authority should not have recently served as the President’s personal criminal-defense lawyer. Congress should establish enforceable conflict-of-interest and recusal requirements preventing a President’s recent personal attorney from overseeing Justice Department matters involving that President, the President’s former prosecutions, political opponents, or investigators and prosecutors who previously investigated the President. This is not about Republican versus Democrat. I would be equally horrified if a Democratic president installed their personal criminal-defense lawyer as Attorney General and that lawyer then oversaw investigations involving the President’s former investigators and political opponents. The Department of Justice belongs to the American people. The Attorney General is not the President’s personal lawyer. Congress needs to put that principle into law.