It’s Time for We the People to Take on Todd Blanche

I’m doing everything in my power to stop Todd Blanche from becoming our next Attorney General. I invite you to join me.

Last week, Donald Trump nominated his personal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, to serve as the next Attorney General of the United States. Blanche’s confirmation would be disastrous for the rule of law and the future of the Justice Department. We have an opportunity to stop it. But it will require all the effort we can collectively marshal, so I’m asking for your help.

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Here’s the current state of play. Trump formally nominated Blanche for the position of Attorney General on June 8. Blanche had been serving in that role on an interim basis since April, following Pam Bondi’s departure.

Blanche’s nomination is now in the hands of the Senate. He must win the approval of a majority of senators to keep the job on a permanent basis. This process is known as confirmation, and it is required by the Constitution.

Blanche will have to clear two hurdles to win confirmation. First, the Senate Judiciary Committee must vote to advance his nomination. The Committee has 22 members, including 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Blanche will need the support of all 12 Republicans to secure the required majority.

If the Committee advances his nomination, it will go to the full Senate for a final vote on confirmation. Blanche will need the support of a majority of senators to win confirmation. Currently, the Senate includes 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. In the event of a tie, the vice president would cast the deciding vote.

Before any votes take place, the Senate will hold a confirmation hearing. That hearing is currently scheduled to take place on July 15 and 16. The first day will consist of Blanche’s sworn testimony. Senators of both parties will have the opportunity to question Blanche under oath about his record to date and his intentions for the future. The second day will include testimony of other witnesses—who have yet to be named—both supporting and opposing Blanche’s nomination. Party leaders will select the witnesses, with the majority party selecting most of the witnesses.

If Blanche has the necessary support after the hearing, the Senate could vote on his confirmation before its August recess.

This is not the first time Blanche has faced Senate confirmation. Last March, senators voted along party lines (52-46) to confirm him as Deputy Attorney General, the number two position in the Department of Justice.

But a lot has changed since then, and Blanche’s confirmation as Attorney General will face a much more challenging path. He will have to clear new hurdles of his own making (including defending his track record on issues ranging from Epstein to the slush fund to revenge prosecutions), and still more hurdles of his boss’s making (namely, winning over newly unshackled Republicans, like John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose reelection bids were effectively ended by Trump).

Blanche will also have to account for broken promises, including his pledge to Senator Thom Tillis, during his first confirmation hearing, that the Department would steer clear of politically motivated investigations. (Tillis: I’ve got your commitment there will not even be a whiff of an investigation that appears to have a political motivation to it? Blanche: I commit to that.) Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, is retiring at the end of his term and has proven willing in the past to block Trump nominees who do not meet his standards. He singlehandedly killed Ed Martin’s prospects for confirmation as U.S. Attorney for D.C.

Blanche’s standing on Capitol Hill recently cratered, at least temporarily, after he signed off on Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund—which proved a bridge too far for even some loyal supporters. Uncertainty about the future of the slush fund remains a sticking point for at least some Republican senators. Public opinion on Blanche has also soured in some influential conservative quarters, with The National Review publishing a searing editorial entitled, “No to Todd Blanche for Attorney General.”

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a member of the Judiciary Committee, acknowledged this week that Blanche will face a tough confirmation battle. Several key Republican senators have identified themselves as undecided, including two members of the Judiciary Committee—Cornyn and Tillis—either of whom could block the nomination before it even reaches the Senate floor.

Blanche’s candidacy is further complicated by opposition from victims of Jeffrey Epstein, whose potential testimony at the confirmation hearing could place pressure on senators facing midterm challenges to distance themselves from Blanche.

If Blanche’s nomination advances to the Senate floor, he can afford to lose only three Republican votes. All 47 Democrats—even John Fetterman—are expected to vote no on Blanche’s confirmation. That means it would take four no votes from Republicans to sink him. Right now, there are at least six Republicans who have publicly expressed some reservations about Blanche. In addition to Cornyn and Tillis, they include Bill Cassidy of Louisiana (who, like Cornyn, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger), Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (who is retiring at the end of his term), Susan Collins of Maine (who is up for reelection this year), and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. And there are several others facing competitive elections—including Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska—who will have to answer to voters in November if they choose to back Blanche.

What all of this means is: there is a plausible path to defeating Blanche’s nomination.

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I won’t promise that we will succeed. A lot is sure to happen in the next month that could affect Blanche’s candidacy either positively or negatively. But I believe this is a battle worth fighting. It is a crucial opportunity to reclaim our power as citizens and to make our voices heard. Even if Blanche is ultimately confirmed, the objections we voice in the confirmation process will be part of the historical record of this moment. That record will later serve as the roadmap for holding Blanche accountable for his misdeeds and abuses of power.

What makes this confirmation fight different and weightier than the one Blanche faced last March is that we now know exactly how corrupt and dangerous he is. I reviewed Blanche’s record in detail in my last post, and I urge you to read it if you haven’t. The short of it is that Blanche has approved and even personally facilitated many of the worst abuses of the justice system in history. These include the sham settlement of Trump’s IRS lawsuit; the Epstein files fiasco; the prison transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell; the vindictive prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia; illegal purges of career DOJ lawyers; and politically motivated investigations and prosecutions of numerous Trump enemies. Among others.

Over the last 15 months, Blanche has frequently used his official position to undermine the very pillars of American democracy that the Attorney General is responsible for upholding: the Constitution and the rule of law. He has demonstrated that he will not allow the law to stand in the way of Donald Trump’s personal or political objectives. This is the exact opposite of what we need in an Attorney General. It’s also exactly why Trump wants Blanche in the role.

The Attorney General has one of the most important and most powerful jobs in the nation. They run the Department of Justice, an organization with over 100,000 employees. They manage the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. They supervise the 94 federal prosecutors’ offices around the country. They direct civil litigation, all the way up to the Supreme Court, on matters of national importance.

The Attorney General’s core duties are to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect our civil rights. Although they are nominated by the President, the Attorney General is not the President’s personal lawyer. They are America’s lawyer. In and out of court, they represent the interests of the United States—not the interests of the President. They take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution—not to the President.

Todd Blanche has betrayed this oath time and time again. As Deputy and now Acting Attorney General, he has repeatedly placed the President’s personal and political interests ahead of the interests of the United States and its citizens. The primary objectives of Trump’s presidency are revenge and profiteering—neither of which serves the American people. Yet Blanche has proven a reliable enabler of both. He has shown that his loyalty is not to his Constitution or country, but to his once and forever client, Donald Trump.

The professed values of the Department of Justice are independence and impartiality, honesty and integrity, respect, and excellence. Blanche has none of those qualities. He is in no way, shape, or form qualified to serve as our next Attorney General.

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Todd Blanche must be stopped, and it is our prerogative as citizens to stop him. We the people are the foundation of our democracy. Our Constitution created a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Our elected and appointed political leaders only have power because we gave it to them. What was ours to give is ours to take back. If you would like to take back Todd Blanche’s power, please join me in the fight to block his confirmation and to hold him accountable for the damage he has done to our country.

So what can we do? The first and most immediate step is to oppose Blanche’s confirmation as Attorney General, and to make our opposition known to the senators who we have empowered to vote our will. The next step is to pursue accountability for Blanche’s past and present misconduct through state bar associations and other authorities. If Blanche is confirmed, this step will be more important than ever. But for now, I want to focus on the first goal of stopping his confirmation.

We have four weeks before Blanche’s confirmation hearing. There are three things I want to ask you to do between now and then.

One: Contact Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Members. Urge Them to Block Blanche’s Nomination.

As I noted above, the first hurdle for Blanche will be a vote by the 22-member Senate Judiciary Committee. He will need the support of all 12 Republican members for his nomination to advance to a full floor vote. That means, any one Republican member could sink his nomination by voting against him in committee. The 12 Republican members are: Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Missouri), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), John Kennedy (Louisiana), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), Eric Schmitt (Missouri), Katie Britt (Alabama), and Ashley Moody (Florida).

The two viewed as most likely to defect are John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, both of whom are nearing the end of their terms. But again, any one of these senators could singlehandedly block Blanche’s confirmation.

Please contact these senators and urge them to stop his nomination. If you don’t have time to contact all 12, focus your energy on Cornyn and Tillis. You do not have to be a constituent to contact them and make your voice heard.

Below is a sample message you could adapt and make your own. There are many reasons to oppose Blanche’s nomination, so choose whichever ones are most important to you. I shared my top 10 here.

I am a concerned citizen who cares deeply about the future of our country. I believe that Todd Blanche is unfit to serve as our next Attorney General. I am urging you to vote against his nomination.

Blanche has already done great damage to the justice system and to the rule of law in America. He has harmed the Department of Justice and put the American people in danger by firing hundreds of career prosecutors and FBI agents. His attacks on judges he disagrees with are irresponsible and dangerous. He is abusing his power and wasting taxpayer resources by focusing on an endless series of revenge prosecutions that are not in the interests of justice.

Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal attorney, and it is clear that he is still putting Trump’s personal interests ahead of the interests of the American people. Blanche’s betrayal of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes is unconscionable. I am especially troubled that Blanche arranged for Ghislaine Maxwell (Epstein’s partner) to be transferred to a minimum security prison camp.

I am also very concerned about the “anti-weaponization” slush fund. Blanche is now claiming that it’s not moving forward—but why won’t he put this in writing? And more importantly, why did he sign off in the first place on using billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to pay people who harmed police officers and committed other crimes?

We need an Attorney General who is loyal to the Constitution and the law. Todd Blanche is not, and his track record proves it. Please think about our country’s future. Please put the law and the Constitution ahead of politics. Please do the right and ethical thing and vote against Todd Blanche. We the people are counting on you.

Two: Contact Vulnerable and Persuadable Republican Senators. Urge Them to Vote No on Blanche.

If Blanche’s nomination makes it through the Judiciary Committee to a floor vote, he will need the support of a majority of all senators. That means it would take four Republican “no” votes to stop his confirmation, as I explained above.

At the moment, the Republicans most likely to vote against Blanche are those who either (1) don’t need to stay in Trump’s good graces, because they won’t be in the Senate much longer, or (2) are facing competitive elections in November and could risk alienating swing voters by supporting Blanche. Senators in the first category include the two Judiciary Committee members I mentioned previously—John Cornyn and Thom Tillis—as well as Bill Cassidy and Mitch McConnell. Senators in the second category include Susan Collins (Maine), Jon Hustead (Ohio), and Dan Sullivan (Alaska). Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) has also expressed reservations about Blanche.

Please contact these senators and urge them to vote no on Blanche. There may be others worth contacting who I’ve missed (or who emerge later). If you have other suggestions or ideas, please share them in the comments. You can adapt the same template above, or send any message you see fit. And again, you don’t need to be their constituent to send a message. These senators have powers and duties that affect all Americans.

It’s important to act quickly. If Blanche is voted out of committee, there may not be much time before he gets a floor vote. So don’t wait until then to start making these contacts.

Three: Spread the Word Throughout Your Network. Urge Your Friends and Neighbors to Take Action.

We have our work cut out for us, and we need all the help we can get. To make our voices heard, we need a chorus of voices. To reclaim our power as citizens, we need a coalition of citizens. So please spread the word widely. Please share this call to action with your neighbors, your friends, and your networks. Help build our team of democracy defenders. We are stronger and more powerful when we work together.

I’ll be keeping track of our progress and sharing updates here. Please leave a comment to let me know if you’ve sent a letter or an email or made a phone call. If you have other ideas or suggestions for the group, please share those in a comment as well. You can also share a copy of your letter or email by uploading it here. I’ll use your submissions to keep the team updated and informed.

I’ll also have more to share closer to the date of the hearing about other ways to participate and make our voices heard. Thank you for being a part of this team and joining me in this fight.