Justice Department Revolt Erupts Over Trump’s Pick to Replace Pam Bondi

More than 1,000 former Justice Department employees called on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to oppose Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general.

The appeal came in a letter signed by over 1,200 former DOJ staffers who served across fourteen presidential administrations.

It arrives only days before Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer, is expected to appear next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of a planned confirmation vote.

“Since his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche has shown time and again that his guiding star is fealty to the President, not the Constitution,” Stacey Young, founder and executive director of Justice Connection, a DOJ alumni organization that coordinated the letter, said in a statement Tuesday.

In the letter, the former department employees cited what they described as a lengthy record of “corruption and abuses” under Blanche’s watch. They pointed to “vindictive prosecutions and investigations of the President’s foes; the deals designed to reward lawbreakers with taxpayer dollars; the erasure of accountability for January 6; the mishandling of the Epstein files; and the denigration of judges,” as well as alleged “repeated violations” of court orders, among other concerns.

“But we want to focus on an area that deserves just as much attention: Todd Blanche’s degradation of DOJ’s apolitical career workforce,” the group wrote in the letter, which was sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

“The consequences of Blanche’s attacks on DOJ’s apolitical workforce radiate beyond the halls of Main Justice, affecting the entire country,” the group added.

‘The culture of fear Blanche has instilled within DOJ’s workforce must end’, they added. ‘Respect for career professionals must return.’

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‘Would-be job applicants need to believe the Justice Department lives up to the virtue in its name. And instead of exhibiting fealty to the president, the Attorney General must heed John Adams’ admonition that our republic remains a ‘government of laws, not of men.’’

The letter was signed by former officials who served in the Justice Department under both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, and includes dozens of US attorneys, component heads, and other senior leaders across DOJ and FBI, including some who have worked with Blanche directly. It can be read in full here. 

Neither the Justice Department nor the White House immediately responded to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on the letter.

Blanche has sparked ire for some of his controversial actions as deputy attorney general. Last November, he made headlines after he characterized the many court fights playing out in Trump’s second term as a ‘war’ between the DOJ and so-called ‘activist judges.’ 

His remarks, delivered at a fireside event hosted by the Federalist Society, prompted fierce pushback and rebuke, including from the New York State Bar Association, and from the Article III Coalition, a group of 50 former federal judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents. 

Blanche used his time to excoriate federal judges for pausing or blocking some of Trump’s biggest executive orders and actions and to urge young lawyers and law students in the audience to fight back.

‘It is a war,’ Blanche said, ‘and it is something we will not win unless we keep on fighting.’

The group of former judges chastised Blanche’s rhetoric, which they said ‘not only endangers individual judges and court staff, but also undermines the public’s trust in the judiciary as an impartial and co-equal branch of government.’