Just when you think Donald Trump has said all the nutty things he can say, along comes a moment like the one Monday where Trump praised Todd Blanche for keeping him out of jail for years. What were the circumstances involved and the exact words spoken? For that, we turn to this report from Mediaite:
President Donald Trump praised acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Monday, saying the lawyer has “kept me out of jail for years.”
What was the sound you might have heard when Trump uttered those words? It was thousands (millions?) of casual listeners spewing liquids out of their mouths, in a reflexive response to the words that had just hit their ears. What did Trump mean, if anything, by his latest mangled attempt at speaking English? We will address that question in a moment. But first, here are more details from Mediaite:
Trump nominated Blanche as deputy attorney general before elevating him to acting attorney general after Trump fired Pam Bondi last month. Previously, Blanche served as Trump’s personal attorney during the New York hush money trial in which Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying records to conceal hush money payments to cover up his affair with pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. In January 2025, then-President-Elect Trump was given a sentence of unconditional discharge with no jail time and no fine.
On Monday, the president hosted an event celebrating law enforcement and praised various members of his administration. Trump had some especially colorful remarks when he got around to Blanche . . .
We have a man who’s doing a great job, I’ll tell you. I knew it, because he kept me out of jail for years. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He kept me out of jail. They would indict me left and right, the crooked Democrats. You know, it’s amazing. They impeach me. They indict me. Then, when I get in office, if I say something like, “Well, maybe that should be looked into.” ‘Weaponization!”
I go through court cases. I win them because they were fake indictments. But when I even mention like, I said the other day that some of the stuff should be looked into. They said, “Weaponization! He’s a terrible human being. Weaponization”… They blame me for weaponization. They are a crooked bunch and we want to keep it the way it is, what we have now. We have great law enforcement now. We have law enforcement that loves our country, not law enforcement that’s sick and dangerous.
What's going on here? Two things jump out at me: (1) Trump is lying when he says he wins court cases. He certainly did not win the Stormy Daniels hush-money case or the E. Jean Carroll civil case involving allegations of rape and defamation, and those are just the two best-known recent cases with which he has been involved; (2) Trump is projecting "weaponization" on his enemies, when no president in history has weaponized "sick and dangerous law enforcement" the way he has -- with his ICE thugs fatally shooting Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
History tells us that Trump lies and projects the way most of us breathe. When he is using those familiar rhetorical devices, it tells me at least some of his brain cells still are intact.
And consider this: Trump mentions that Todd Blanche "kept me out of jail" twice. And Blanche did not save him from legal peril for a short period of time; he did it "for years."
This suggests to me that Trump has a genuine concern he did something so wrong, so damning that, without Blanche's intervention, it could have landed him behind bars. We should note here that Trump uses the term "jail" probably because, like many Americans, he uses that term and "prison" interchangeably. In fact, the two terms have different meanings, with jail usually used for relatively brief stays (often while a jailee awaits trial or disposition of his case) and prison reserved for more serious offenses (often used for years or decades or incarceration).
In this instance, Trump's mind probably was on prison. I suspect Trump would guffaw at the notion of jail. He almost certainly knows that someone of his wealth and status is unlikely to land in jail. After all, members of the privileged class can afford the kind of high-priced lawyers who can convince a judge their clients will appear for hearings and such.
At this point, we should consider this question: How many times has Todd Blanche represented Trump in criminal cases. TIME magazine provides the answer in a profile of Blanche published on April 2, 2026:
Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Blanche, 51, represented the President in three of the four criminal cases he has faced. In the hush-money trial in which Trump was ultimately convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a 2016 payment to an adult film star, Blanche served as his lead defense attorney. He also defended Trump—to more favorable results—in the federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling of classified documents. Both cases were dismissed after Trump won re-election in 2024.
The two Jack Smith cases, which likely were by far the strongest and most important cases against Trump, now are behind him because voters returned him to the White House. Trump has attempted several avenues to have his hush-money convictions overturned, but that has not been resolved at the time of this writing. The judge in that case sentenced Trump to an "unconditional discharge," which meant no prison, probation or fines, so that case essentially is behind him, too.
An alert reader might be thinking, "Schnauzer, Todd Blanche is acting attorney general, which means he can no longer be Trump's personal attorney." And here is my response: "Technically, you are correct. But we are talking about Donald Trump here, and history tells us he wants his AGs to make personal loyalty to the president their No. 1 priority -- with administration of justice somewhere way down the list.
"Both Blanche and his predecessor, Pam Bondi, have proven willing to bend and/or break all kinds of rules -- including mandates of the Justice Department Manual that forbid them from considering the president's desires on charging or non-charging decisions -- to curry favor with the White House. Bondi and Blanche have proven that they are happy to essentially turn the U.S. Department of Justice into Trump's personal law firm.
That Todd Blanche was willing to indict James Comey in the absurd "seashells by the seashore case" is proof that he happily places Trump's desire for revenge over serving the public interest.
So, where do we stand in regards to Trump's peculiar statement that Todd Blanche "has kept me out of jail for years"? In my view, Trump is making a confession, one hidden by goofy, scrambled language.
We know that all of Trump's criminal matters -- the ones that have gone to court -- are behind him, at least in terms of substantive punishment. At the risk of getting into "psycho babble," I think Trump's statement about being kept from jail was an example of his sub-conscious talking out loud, stating matters that his conscious brain was not actively planning to say.
We know that it is not uncommon for subconscious thoughts to become vocalized, perhaps as Freudian slips or cognitive errors (slips of the tongue).
So what criminal matters could be weighing so heavily on Trump's mind? His statement that Todd Blanche has kept him out of prison "for years," suggests Trump knows serious legal jeopardy is hanging over his head. It hasn't come in the form of a court case yet, but that might only be due to his desperate efforts to keep it out of public view -- and the willingness of Blanche and Bondi to unlawfully protect him.
Trump's subconscious seems to realize this is a matter where no statute of limitations is likely to save him. This is from a query to AI Overview:
Criminal Cases: Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 3283) dictates that there is no statute of limitations for the prosecution of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or kidnapping of a child under the age of 18.
Donald Trump might not know much about the law, but I suspect he knows this. In my view, this knowledge -- even if it is buried deep in Trump's subconscious -- is the driver of his strange comments about being kept out of jail "for years." And it all points, of course, to Trump's documented ties to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's and the allegations of victims that Trump was involved in horrifying activities, including rape and murder. Trump and his allies have managed to largely stonewall the public on the full extent of his activities related to Epstein. But the president's subconscious seems to know that time is on the side of justice.
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