Blanche Rejects DOJ Independence Pledge, Says Executive Branch Must Align With Presidential Policy

Todd Blanche sat across from NBC's Kristen Welker on a Sunday morning in August and declined to make a promise that has become almost routine for attorneys general in recent years: that the Justice Department would operate independently of the White House. The newly confirmed attorney general was direct about it. "No, I'm not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that," he said.

The refusal was not accidental. Blanche has spent months articulating a different theory of how the executive branch should function—one in which the Justice Department, like every other federal agency, exists to carry out the elected president's policy agenda. He drew a careful distinction between that legitimate coordination and something else entirely: political interference in individual cases. When Welker pressed him on the difference, Blanche offered an example. If President Trump directed the department to pursue violent criminals across the country, Blanche said, he should execute that order. To refuse would be to tell the president, "No, sir, I'm not going to do it." The Justice Manual itself, he noted, permits exactly this kind of policy-level coordination while restricting White House contact on pending cases to senior officials, a safeguard meant to insulate enforcement decisions from partisan pressure.

The exchange reflected a broader argument Blanche has made since his confirmation hearing in July, when Senator Chris Coons asked a similar question. "The Department of Justice, like every single Department in the executive branch, is part of the executive," Blanche answered then. Emily Covington, the DOJ's director of public affairs, reinforced the point in a statement to Fox News. She posed a direct question back: "Are you suggesting that the focus of the Department should not align with the policy goals of the President, who was elected by the American people?" The implication was clear—to demand DOJ independence was to demand that the department work against the will of voters.

Welker did not let the matter rest. She asked whether Blanche would comply if Trump ordered him to cross an ethical or legal line. Blanche rejected the premise outright. "He never has. He never will," he said, invoking his constitutional oath. "I swore to the Constitution of the United States like every cabinet secretary has done and like every attorney general before me has done." The DOJ later pointed to his public statements on the subject, including references to the classified-documents investigation at Mar-a-Lago conducted under the previous administration. FBI records released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley revealed internal disagreement: Washington Field Office officials had said they lacked probable cause for a search warrant and preferred seeking Trump's voluntary cooperation, while the DOJ's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section argued probable cause existed and pressed forward. A federal magistrate approved the warrant before the August 2022 search. Communications from May 2022 showed coordination among the DOJ, White House Counsel's Office, and National Archives during the investigation, though the National Archives later distinguished between that process and the later search itself.

Blanche's confirmation was not smooth. Some Senate Republicans demanded he rescind a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund and narrow IRS audit protections for Trump and his family. Two Republican senators—Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—joined every Senate Democrat in voting against him. Collins was explicit about her reasoning: "Mr. Blanche has taken several actions that have further eroded the Department's independence, and that is the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation." Yet he was confirmed nonetheless, and in his first address to DOJ employees as attorney general, Blanche sought to reassure them. He promised to lead with integrity and to focus on the department's core mission: upholding the rule of law fairly and impartially. He also said he would consider Trump's views on individual prosecutions but would stand firm when he believed something was wrong. The president, he insisted, does not direct him to prosecute specific people. What remains to be seen is how that balance holds as the administration moves forward.