WASHINGTON (CN) — Todd Blanche, a former lawyer for President Donald Trump and his nominee for deputy attorney general, told lawmakers that the federal and state prosecutions of the former president were a “gross abuse” of the justice system and vowed to keep politics out of the Justice Department.
“I stood next to and defended President Trump as partisan prosecutors and politicians abused our legal system in completely unprecedented ways to fulfill a political agenda — which was prosecuting and attacking President Trump,” Blanche told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing Wednesday.
Blanche, tapped in November to serve under now-Attorney General Pam Bondi, represented Trump in the New York state criminal case which saw the president convicted on 34 felony counts. The former federal prosecutor also represented Trump in two federal cases overseen by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and defended onetime Trump adviser Paul Manafort in his 2016 fraud trial.
The nominee said his experiences defending Manafort and the president demonstrated to him that prosecutors have “predicated entire campaigns” on targeting political rivals and said, if confirmed, he would work alongside Bondi to rid the Justice Department of what he saw as undue political influence.
“Politics should never play a role in the Department of Justice,” Blanche said. “We will work to restore the American people’s faith in our justice system.”
The belief that the U.S. justice system was “weaponized” against Trump following his term in office has long been a cornerstone of Republican criticism of the Biden administration and formed the backbone of Trump’s campaign to return to the White House.
That dynamic, however, has raised concerns about the Justice Department’s independence under the president’s second administration. Democrats and other skeptics worry that Trump could pressure law enforcement officials to exact retribution against those he believes targeted him.
Bondi, whom the Senate confirmed earlier this month, has done little to quiet those concerns. The newly minted attorney general referred to Justice Department attorneys as the president’s lawyers in a memo to agency staff and threatened government lawyers who refuse to support the administration’s court arguments with discipline.
But Blanche said Wednesday that politics should play no role in the Justice Department, “full stop.”
“I think what we saw over the past several years was something completely inconsistent with that concept and that idea, and the whole country saw it,” he told Utah Senator Mike Lee. “It’s going to take a long time to grab that credibility back, but the way to grab it back is just to have politics play no role, period.”
Asked by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar if he considered the position of deputy attorney general to be “the president’s lawyer,” Blanche said no. He also acknowledged that all Justice Department lawyers take an oath to the Constitution and work on behalf of the U.S., not the president.
But Blanche demurred on questions from Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal about whether he would refuse to comply with directions from Trump that were “illegal or immoral.”
“I will follow the law, senator,” the nominee said. “Period.”
Senate Democrats asked similar questions of Bondi during her January nomination hearing. The attorney general said at the time that she would “never play politics” as head of the Justice Department. But she was similarly cagey when pressed about specific issues where she might have to break from the president and refused to say directly that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.
Bondi also refused to say whether she would allow the president to pardon convicted criminals from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, telling lawmakers she would consider those on a “case-by-case basis.” Trump would later issue a blanket pardon for Jan. 6 rioters via executive order before Bondi was confirmed.
The Judiciary Committee on Wednesday also interviewed Abigail Slater, Trump’s pick for assistant attorney general overseeing antitrust litigation. Slater previously worked as a tech policy adviser in the Senate office of Vice President JD Vance.
Both Slater and Blanche faced little Republican resistance during the nomination hearing and appear likely to advance out of the Judiciary Committee, even if on party lines.
The upper chamber’s legal affairs panel has for weeks examined the Trump administration’s nominees for various Justice Department and law enforcement roles. The committee is scheduled Thursday to vote on Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director — a pick which has drawn sharp consternation from Democrats.