{"id":9924,"date":"2026-08-16T21:04:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T21:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9924"},"modified":"2026-08-16T21:04:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T21:04:48","slug":"blanche-declines-to-pledge-independence-from-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9924","title":{"rendered":"Blanche declines to pledge independence from the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n            Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday declined to commit to always acting independently of the White House, a concern among critics who worry the Justice Department is carrying out President Donald Trump\u2019s political agenda.\n    <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9922\">States set school vaccine requirements. Trump\u2019s new executive order doesn\u2019t change that<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that,\u201d Blanche told NBC\u2019s Kristen Welker on \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d going on to say Trump has not and never will ask him to cross a legal or ethical line and that the Justice Department will \u201cprosecute without fear or any sort of favor.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Blanche \u2014 Trump\u2019s former personal defense attorney who was confirmed by the Senate last weekend after serving in an acting capacity since April \u2014 also suggested he\u2019d take the president\u2019s views into account in individual prosecution decisions.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cEvery American has a voice in prosecutions\u2026 So whether President Trump should have a, quote, voice, it depends, but yes,\u201d Blanche said when pressed on whether Trump should ever have such a say in light of the president\u2019s call to revisit the Reflecting Pool vandalism case that the US Attorney for the District of Columbia recently dismissed.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cWill I take the president of the United States\u2019 view on something into consideration? Yes, of course. And I hope every attorney general in history would not answer that question differently,\u201d Blanche added.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The Justice Department has faced accusations of political dealing on Trump\u2019s behalf amid indictments or attempted indictments against some of the president\u2019s perceived political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But during the \u201cMeet the Press\u201d interview and a separate interview with \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d Blanche insisted he has the ability to disagree with Trump.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cThe president loves disagreement,\u201d Blanche told Fox.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cHe wants to get counsel from all of his leaders that is just that \u2013 counsel. It doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re saying yes to him,\u201d Blanche said, adding that Trump would \u201cexpect\u201d him to tell him his honest feelings, even if the attorney general disagreed.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cThere\u2019s that misnomer about President Trump \u2013 which is that he wakes up in the morning, calls me up, and says \u2018Todd, go prosecute this.\u2019 That\u2019s absolutely not the case.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Blanche on NBC declined to say whether DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro should revisit the Reflecting Pool case, as Trump has called for, but said he supports her and so does Trump, who had considered firing her.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cI absolutely support US attorney Pirro, as does President Trump. Now that\u2019s different than whether the president is extraordinarily frustrated at what happened in that case, and I don\u2019t in any way fault him for that.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But Blanche also defended Pirro, saying she\u2019s \u201cdoing a phenomenal job,\u201d adding, \u201cand I think judging her on a single case because of the evidence that we had is not fair.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9914\">Trump\u2019s vaccine order is counterproductive and \u2018wrong on so many levels,\u2019 GOP lawmaker says<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n            On an issue that Trump has made a focus of his second term \u2014 election integrity \u2014 Blanche told NBC the administration may ask the Supreme Court to decide on its efforts to obtain voter rolls from states ahead of this year\u2019s midterms.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Trump has demanded states turn over unredacted voter rolls and other sensitive information \u2014 part of the administration\u2019s efforts to insert itself in federal elections that was fueled by Trump\u2019s longstanding and baseless assertions that the 2020 election was stolen from him.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The administration has sued roughly 30 states that have refused to open their voter rolls to administration scrutiny, but has frequently lost in court.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n            Asked whether he would appeal those court losses to the Supreme Court, Blanche said it was a \u201cpossibility.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cAbsolutely, it\u2019s a possibility,\u201d Blanche told Welker.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cElection integrity is something that President Trump ran on, and the American people elected him. It\u2019s something that every American should care about,\u201d the attorney general added.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Blanche reiterated that Trump\u2019s \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund \u2014 which had threatened to derail his confirmation \u2014 is \u201cdead,\u201d but added that there remain processes in place for individuals who think they were wronged by the government to seek compensation, declining to guarantee that wouldn\u2019t include January 6, 2021, rioters.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cWell, anybody can file a claim against the federal government, not just anybody associated with January 6,\u201d Blanche said.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cI\u2019m not going to sit here and say on a news program whether a litigation that may or may not happen will result in money,\u201d he added.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cI can\u2019t do that. So, what I will say is that there\u2019s a process in place for decades where somebody that believes they\u2019ve been wronged, or a tort\u2019s been committed against them by the federal government, can seek redress.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The Justice Department formally rescinded the \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund that would have benefitted those who claimed they were mistreated by the federal government after it threatened to imperil Blanche\u2019s confirmation as attorney general.\n    <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9910\">Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where hardship and resilience share quarters<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday declined to commit to always acting independently of the White House, a concern among critics who worry the Justice Department is carrying out President Donald Trump\u2019s political agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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