Trump’s AG Appointee Is a Literal Sock Puppet
Todd Blanche might be the most craven attorney general yet. Thankfully, he’s also incompetent.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies before Congress.
(Nathan Posner / Anadolu via Getty Images)Donald Trump has nominated his own personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to serve as attorney general. Blanche has been the acting AG since Trump fired Pam Bondi.
The nomination raises a crucial question that we are often forced to ask these days: How screwed are we?
I could make an argument that Blanche is worse than Bondi, but that would be a distinction without a difference. Like Bondi, Blanche is willing to do whatever Trump tells him to do: He’s willing to file frivolous lawsuits against Trump’s enemies, use the awesome power of the Department of Justice to support Trump’s private financial interests, and say literally anything Trump wants him to say.
Where Blanche stands out is his willingness to do all of this without any veneer of shame or legal independence. Bondi would say and do whatever Trump wanted her to, but she seemed to at least try to give the appearance of independent thought. Blanche, by contrast, has appeared to allow Trump to write legal filings himself. Bondi was a marionette, but Blanche is a straight-up sock puppet: Blanche can only move his mouth when Trump sticks his arm up Blanche’s ass.
Blanche rose to fame and power as Trump’s personal attorney during the Stormy Daniels saga. For some reason, there are people, including Trump apparently, who think Blanche “successfully” defended Trump during the trial surrounding his hush-money payments to Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. But Trump, and Blanche, lost that case. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He avoided jail time only because Judge Juan Merchan punked out and granted Trump an “unconditional discharge” in 2025 after Trump recaptured the presidency. If Trump had lost the 2024 election, he’d likely be in jail, thanks in part to Blanche’s pathetic defense.
Blanche’s incompetence has been the defining feature of his time in government. As acting AG, he’s done nothing but file frivolous, borderline-nonsensical lawsuits against Trump’s enemies, like James Comey. He is also responsible for the white-grievance reparations fund that was meant to pay out Trump’s private January 6 army. That idea was so bad that even other Republicans blanched at the thought and shut it down.
Blanche is the worst kind of attorney, because he only does what his client wants. He doesn’t provide any advice, doesn’t tell the client that their ideas are bad, and doesn’t even shape those bad ideas into their most palatable legal forms. He just does what he’s told. He’s more of a notary public than a legal adviser. You could call up any lawyer whose QR code you scanned on the subway and get Todd Blanche.
But that’s not why Blanche is unfit to lead the Department of Justice. A subway lawyer could make a fine AG if they understood their client to be the American people. But Blanche doesn’t think he works for the American people. He doesn’t even think he works for the American government. Blanche’s one and only client is Donald Trump. Blanche has never for a day stopped being Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney, even as he’s been given more and more prosecutorial power inside the Department of Justice. Confirming Blanche as AG is like letting the mob boss pick the police commissioner.
All that said, Blanche’s signature feature, his incompetence, might also be the saving grace for the rest of us. An incompetent AG who’s tasked with doing Trump’s bidding is far better than a competent AG trying to do Trump’s bidding. Consider the list of people who have served as attorney general (acting or confirmed) over Trump’s two terms:
- Jeff Sessions
- Matt Whitaker
- William Barr
- John Eastman (Eastman was never acting AG, but during the run-up to the January 6 coup attempt, after Trump lost the election and Barr refused to try to overturn it, Barr was pushed out and Eastman was effectively running the DOJ for several days.)
- Pam Bondi
Sorry, friends, but I cannot look at that list and think, “Oh noes, not Todd Blanche, how will we ever survive?” Sessions is as close as we’ve come to having a Klansman running the DOJ in the 21st century. Whitaker was a toilet-bowl salesman. Eastman would have ended the republic if he could have. Bondi spent more time working on her burn books than her legal briefs.
And then there’s Bill Barr, easily the most effective attorney general Trump has ever had. Barr was useful to us for about three weeks, when Trump was trying to overthrow the government, but, other than that, Barr was a terror for democracy. He was a relentlessly effective advocate for strongman control. He helped sculpt “unitary executive theory” into a blank check for Trump’s attempts to destroy the administrative state. And he used all the powers available to the DOJ to hide the truth and lie to the media.
If (or when) Trump tries to overthrow the government again, will Blanche stand in his way like Barr once did? No, of course not. Blanche will do everything he can to help his client achieve his goal, no matter how illegal or unconstitutional that goal is. But Blanche will be bad at it. He’s not as smart as Barr or as creative as Eastman. He doesn’t have the connections of Sessions, and he can’t even sell a toilet bowl as effectively as Whitaker. Even Bondi could at least do a Mean Girls impression. All Blanche can do is put Trump’s Truth Social posts on DOJ letterhead and wait for the MAGA Supreme Court to bail him out.
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“swipe left below to view more authors”Swipe →That doesn’t mean he should be confirmed as attorney general. Democrats should do everything in their limited power to stop him—and, frankly, even Republicans should demand a more effective advocate for their worst desires. If he gets the job, his tenure will be awful and lawless. Trump will use the power of the DOJ against his perceived enemies without facing any legal accountability whatsoever.
But how is that different from every day? How would it be different with any AG Trump would nominate?
If you want to stop a sock puppet, you don’t demand a different sock. You disarm the guy animating the puppet. Donald Trump has been the “acting” attorney general for his entire second term. As long as he holds power, the puppet he picks to say his words doesn’t really matter.
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