NY Times report on White House efforts to cover up ties to Jeffrey Epstein portrays Todd Blanche as a Trump butt sniffer with no regard for the rule of law

Todd Blanche: The ultimate Trump loyalist (Politico)

The New York Times' explosive account of White House insiders frenzied efforts to keep Donald Trump's connections to dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein under wraps might have cost one of those insiders a job he apparently craves. That's from a report at Raw Story under the headline "Todd Blanche may have torpedoed his own AG nomination with Epstein stunt: analysis." Nicole Charky-Chami writes:

A damning New York Times report released on Wednesday raised new concerns about Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and his involvement with the Epstein files.

Blanche has come under fire over his role in "attempting to kill off the Epstein firestorm," just days after President Donald Trump formally nominated his former personal lawyer for permanent attorney general, The Daily Beast reports. Now, doubts are being raised over whether he could be the top leader of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing — and whether he could maintain his independence.

"Opponents argue he is not fit for the job, pointing to his handling of the Epstein files, which identified numerous victims but kept the names of potential co-conspirators hidden, as well as other controversies, such as Trump’s $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' slush fund and the backroom deal giving the president immunity from continuing IRS audits," The Beast reported.

Opponents are correct that Blanche is not fit for the job. Also, it should be obvious to anyone who has paid close attention to Blanche's actions as acting AG that the answers to Charky-Chami's queries are "No, he cannot be an objective leader of the DOJ" and "No, he has no intention of maintaining any sort of independence."

Blanche has proven to be the ultimate political animal in the Trump universe; he is an uber loyalist, who if confirmed, will focus on only one task -- to make sure the president's directives are carried out ASAP. By bringing an indictment against former FBI director James Comey for photographing seashells on a North Carolina beach, Blanche has shown there is no depth to which he won't stoop in order to punish the people Trump perceives as enemies. Quaint concepts like due process, the rule of law, and prosecutorial independence will not factor into any equation Blanche employs for the AG job. The only equation Blanche will need is this: Puckering lips + Trump's butt = MAGAfied glory.

Let's consider the oath a Senate-confirmed AG swears before taking office:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Can Todd Blanche be expected to take these words seriously? Can Trump be expected to follow the Constitutional command that he "take care that the Laws be faithfully executed"? The answer to both questions is no. 

We addressed obligations facing an AG and a president in a post dated Feb. 17, 2025, less than one month after Trump took office for his second term. Here is one relevant section from that post:

Donald Trump and his allies are plotting to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November election, according to a report from Axios. After months of Congressional inquiries, no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has surfaced, so it is unclear what would form the basis of a Trump-fueled prosecution. But this much appears to be clear: Trump apparently wants to prosecute Biden because he believes Biden had him prosecuted -- even though Trump has offered no evidence to support that claim. One prominent legal analyst has stated that Biden did not have Trump prosecuted and could not have done so. Those matters come down to grand jurors.

Also, the Axios report suggests Trump has no problem violating roughly 40 years of U.S. policy that holds the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is to operate independently of the White House -- that presidents are not prosecutors, and they are to be excluded from decisions to charge or not charge suspected wrongdoers. . . . 

Here is another relevant section from that post, and it should be familiar to both Trump and Blanche. We've seen no evidence that either of them takes it seriously:

Trump can't resist exerting demands on the DOJ, mainly because he is desperate to extract revenge on his perceived political opponents. But that runs contrary to longstanding U.S. policy, as spelled out in the DOJ's Justice Manual. This is from Section 1-8.600 - Communication with the White House:

In order to promote and protect the norms of Departmental independence and integrity in making decisions regarding criminal and civil law enforcement, while at the same time preserving the President’s ability to perform his constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” the Justice Department will not advise the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal or civil law enforcement investigations or cases unless doing so is important for the performance of the President’s duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.

Charky-Chami notes that The Times article portrays Blanche in a highly unfavorable light. Assuming large numbers of Americans consume and digest that message, the newspaper will have done a significant public service. From the Raw Story report:

The bombshell reporting from Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan is part of an upcoming book and includes multiple revelations about what happened within the Trump administration and includes Blanche's involvement as the then-deputy attorney general under former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

"Blanche and other Trump aides—including Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Communications Director Steven Cheung and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt—held a panicked meeting in the Situation Room in July last year, desperate to quell the MAGA civil war that had erupted over the administration’s failure to release the Epstein files," according to The Beast.

In the meeting, Blanche reportedly offered two potential options.

"The first was to petition Federal District Courts in Florida and New York to unseal grand jury testimonies related to Jeffrey Epstein’s heinous sex trafficking crimes, as these were unlikely to contain any new information, and therefore, releasing them was unlikely to damage Trump," The Beast reported.

Blanche probably knew that getting a federal judge to unseal grand jury material would be a tough move, The Beast reported.

"The second option was to have a Justice Department official interview Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and release the transcript," according to The Beast.

Blanche apparently volunteered to sit down with Maxwell. He has described her attorney, David Oscar Markus, as "a friend."