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Donald Trump’s recent record on U.S. attorneys and other federal prosecutors is a rather embarrassing mess. Some of the Republican lawyers have been purged for political reasons, some have resigned and some were forced out by the courts.
But perhaps most important of all are the president’s prosecutors who have actually tried to do their jobs in line with the White House’s agenda.
In Nevada, Sigal Chattah, a member of the Republican National Committee, has led a U.S. attorney’s office for the last year, and according to a Bloomberg Law report published last week, she’s used her office to “launch investigations at the behest of former clients and friends,” and also “opened a probe targeting her past political foe.”
In Illinois, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros’ tenure has become highly controversial, as evidenced by the intensifying mess surrounding his office’s handling of the “Broadview Six” case.
In Wyoming, interim U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith botched some criminal cases so badly that federal judges had to intervene. (Senate Republicans soon after rewarded Smith with a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.)
But let’s also not overlook Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney who’s leading the office in the Central District of California.
Essayli, a former Republican state lawmaker, has cultivated quite a reputation, reportedly ignoring the recommendations of senior prosecutors and demanding that the office pursue MAGA-aligned cases without regard for insufficient evidence. Last year, he also dropped a fraud case against a fast-food chain owner who just happened to be a major Trump donor.
This week, Essayli apparently thought it’d be a good idea to appear on Glenn Beck’s program, where he vowed to bring criminal charges in “one to two months” related to his party’s conspiracy theories regarding California elections. The Republican prosecutor seemed to suggest that he hasn’t yet collected real evidence, though he apparently plans to address this problem by turning to the public for help. The New Republic reported:
First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli — who oversees 500 attorneys — went on The Glenn Beck Program on Monday to beg listeners to help him find evidence of election fraud.
“I expect people will be charged. … We have set up a tipline. I’ve set up a dedicated email. … We are looking for any sort of widescale conspiracy, if you will. … If anyone knows anything … if you’ve witnessed anything … if you saw someone collecting ballots in a suspicious way, or doing something odd with ballots, we wanna know about that.”
The circumstances were, among other things, bizarre. Federal prosecutors rarely appear on programs such as Beck’s; they almost never predict future prosecutions against alleged criminals who haven’t yet been identified; and it’s even more unusual for them to effectively try to crowdsource evidence collection.
What’s more, this is not a comprehensive list. Other Trump-appointed prosecutors in other jurisdictions have failed in other embarrassing ways.
The longer the list becomes, the worse it is for the rule of law and law enforcement. If you voted for the Republican ticket because you expected Trump and his team to be “tough on crime,” I have some bad news for you.
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Donald Trump hasn’t exactly gotten along well with his attorneys general. Ten days into his first term, for example, the president fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she notified the White House that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn lied about his post-election talks with Vladimir Putin’s government and may be vulnerable to a Russian blackmail campaign.
In the months and years that followed, Trump clashed with Jeff Sessions during his tenure as attorney general, accusing the Alabama Republican of “disloyalty” and being an “idiot.” He later similarly condemned Bill Barr, calling him a “spineless RINO” and a “disappointment in every sense of the word.” The president wasn’t even satisfied with Pam Bondi, complaining that she didn’t move quickly or aggressively enough to meet his partisan demands.
Trump likely believes he’ll have better luck with his latest choice. MS NOW reported:
President Donald Trump on Monday formally nominated his longtime loyalist and former personal defense lawyer Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general permanently.
Blanche has been serving as the nation’s top prosecutor in an acting capacity after Pam Bondi was fired by Trump in April. Blanche was Bondi’s deputy at the time. The nomination has been sent to the Senate.
Since becoming the acting attorney general, Blanche went to almost cartoonish lengths to use his office in ways designed to please the White House, up to and including indicting people the president doesn’t like. Trump, not surprisingly, was delighted. Whether senators are equally impressed remains to be seen, though there’s no reason to assume that his confirmation will be easy.
Stepping back, however, there’s the related question of why Blanche actually wants this job.
With recent history in mind, it’s clear that serving as Trump’s attorney general isn’t easy. A recent Slate piece described it as “the worst job in Trump’s Cabinet,” adding that under the incumbent president, this is an “impossible, degrading, no-win job.”
That might’ve seemed hyperbolic, but it’s grounded in fact: Trump has a very specific vision in mind related to the position, and it’s not pretty. As has become painfully clear, the president wants a partisan loyalist who will serve as his personal tool, using the Justice Department to advance Trump’s goals and interests at all times, under all circumstances, and without regard for any other considerations.
The president, in other words, expects an attorney general who’s part puppet, part weapon and part cheerleader. Those serious about the rule of law and apolitical ethical limits need not apply.
I’ve seen some analyses that have described the office under Trump as “an impossible job,” largely because no one can be quite pathetic enough to satiate all of the president’s whims and demands. It’s a fair point, to be sure, but that’s what makes Blanche’s nomination inherently interesting: He, unlike guys such as Sessions and Barr, doesn’t actually want to lead the DOJ or oversee federal law enforcement; Blanche simply wants to serve Trump.
In other words, Blanche might very well be the first and only attorney general Trump actually gets along with because he and the president share a common view of the office. By tradition, those in this role strive to be “the people’s lawyer.” The president’s new nominee has no such ambitions: His goal is to serve one American, not 340 million Americans.
Blanche has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to be the American people’s attorney general; he wants to be Trump’s attorney general. Is it any wonder why the president is optimistic about his choice?
The post Being Trump’s attorney general is an awful job. Todd Blanche apparently doesn’t care. appeared first on MS NOW.
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