Todd Blanche Refuses to Pledge Justice Department’s Independence From Trump
- Edited by: Sagar Kar
- Updated Aug 16, 2026, 23:26 IST
Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to pledge that the Justice Department would always act independently of the White House. He also defended Trump’s pardoning of roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants, saying it was solely within the president’s rights.
Attorney General Todd Blanche.
US Attorney General Todd Blanche refused on Sunday to guarantee that the Justice Department under his leadership would always operate independently from the White House and President Trump. When NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker directly asked whether he could pledge that the department would act independently of Trump, Blanche’s answer was blunt. He said he wasn’t going to make that pledge, adding that no attorney general ever should.
Despite that answer, Blanche insisted Trump would never push him to cross an ethical or legal line. He told Welker the president had never asked him to do anything unethical or illegal and never would. Blanche pointed to his own oath to the Constitution, the same oath every cabinet secretary and every attorney general before him has taken, as evidence of where his loyalties lie.
He went further, dismissing what he called a narrative pushed mainly by the political left and the media, the idea that Trump might quietly pull him aside and ask him to break the law. Blanche called that story completely false, saying it hasn’t happened and won’t happen.
A Rocky Path to Confirmation
Blanche’s comments came just days after he barely made it through Senate confirmation, squeaking by in a 50 to 49 vote to take over as attorney general. Every Democrat in the Senate voted against him. He replaced Pam Bondi, who Trump dismissed after growing frustrated that the Justice Department wasn’t moving aggressively enough against his political opponents.
Before stepping into this role, Blanche had a very different job connected to Trump. He served as the president’s criminal defense attorney during the New York state trial that ended with a jury convicting Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Back in April, Blanche made headlines for a different reason, saying that if Trump ever decided to fire him and replace Bondi with someone else, his response would simply be, “I love you, sir.”
Facing Scrutiny Over Epstein Case Handling
Blanche has also drawn criticism over decisions connected to the Jeffrey Epstein case. In December, he defended the decision to transfer Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of child sex trafficking and was closely tied to Epstein, to a minimum security prison. He has continued facing pushback over how he’s handled what’s often referred to as the Epstein files, as well as criticism from Epstein’s victims regarding how he has treated them.
Defending Trump’s January 6 Pardons
During the same interview with Welker, Blanche also weighed in on Trump’s decision to pardon roughly 1,500 supporters convicted in connection with the attack on the US Capitol near the end of his first term in early 2021. That group included more than 170 people who had pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.
When asked directly about the pardons, Blanche declined to criticize the decision. He said he wasn’t offering any opinion on whether what Trump did was right or wrong, and stated plainly that issuing pardons is simply within the president’s rights.
Latest News
Sagar is a journalist with an interest primarily in geopolitics and American domestic politics. Before joining Times Now, he wrote for Republic and Sw… View More
Original source: https://www.timesnownews.com/world
