Todd Blanche has only been the confirmed attorney general for about a week, but he has already shown how justice works under Donald Trump. In his first Sunday show interview with Kristen Welker since taking the job, Blanche was asked directly about the January 6th pardons and gave an answer that should concern anyone who cares about law and order.
Welker pointed out that police officers at the Capitol were beaten with baseball bats and flagpoles, and asked if it was wrong to pardon those who attacked them, especially since Blanche had promised to protect law enforcement. Blanche replied that every attorney general makes that promise, including himself, and said he would not say Trump did anything wrong. When asked if this contradicted his own vow, he said absolutely not, repeating it twice.
The difference Blanche described is the main issue.
Blanche said there is a difference between promising to prosecute people who commit crimes and objecting when the president later erases their convictions. He described the pardon as the president using a constitutional power, and said the attorney general should not call it a mistake.
At first, this sounds like a technical detail. But in practice, it means the Justice Department can charge people, hold press conferences, and get convictions, but the president decides if anyone actually serves a sentence. Trump has shown he will use pardons to protect his supporters. In this system, prosecution is just for show, and the pardon is what really matters.
What the pardons actually erased
About 1,500 people were charged for the Capitol attack, and over a thousand had already been convicted and sentenced when Trump signed a blanket clemency order on his first day back in office. Senator Chris Coons noted during Blanche’s confirmation hearing that by 5 p.m. on January 20th, all of them had been pardoned or had their sentences reduced, and he brought this up directly with Blanche.
Several hundred of those charged were accused of assaulting police officers, and hundreds more were charged with obstructing or interfering with them. More than 140 officers were hurt that day, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. His family joined House Democrats in condemning the clemency soon after Trump signed it.
Blanche has Blanche was also involved in the financial aftermath. The administration proposed a fund of about $1.8 billion for people who said the federal government had wrongly prosecuted them, including January 6th defendants. Blanche told Welker there will be no such fund and no plan to bring it back, repeating a promise he made under oath in July that should be remembered.
What stands out about Blanche’s answer on Sunday is that he had already admitted this point when he needed Senate votes. At his July hearing, he said those who assaulted police at the Capitol deserved prosecution and called the officers crime victims, but he still would not criticize Trump for erasing their convictions.
Coons also challenged Blanche with his own comments from the Conservative Political Action Conference, where Blanche called the pardons an accomplishment instead of just accepting them. It’s a difficult position to maintain, and his interview with Welker suggests he is no longer trying to do so.
The contradiction became even clearer two days before the interview aired. At a Trump rally in Long Island, where he endorsed a Republican candidate, Blanche promised that anyone who harms a federal law enforcement officer will be prosecuted fully. Former Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell responded by posting photos of his injuries and noting that the president Blanche works for has pardoned the men who caused them.
The lawyer who never really stopped working for Trump
None of this is surprising if you know Blanche’s background. He was Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer during the New York hush money trial, which ended in a conviction on 34 felony counts. At his 2025 hearing to become deputy attorney general, he told Senator Adam Schiff that he still had an attorney-client relationship with Trump.
After serving as the department’s second-in-command, Blanche was given the acting librarian of Congress job, though some have questioned whether this appointment was legal. He also led a nine-hour interview with Ghislaine Maxwell over two days in Florida. Some former federal prosecutors said this might have been for show, considering his history with the president. It later came out that Blanche and Maxwell’s lawyer are longtime friends who have appeared together on a legal podcast.
When Trump fired Pam Bondi in April after reports that she was not acting quickly enough against his political opponents, Blanche became acting attorney general and told reporters he enjoyed working for the president. While he was in charge, the department brought charges against James Comey and Letitia James, but a federal judge dismissed them completely, saying the prosecutor had no legal authority to bring the cases.
Senate Judiciary Democrats had already asked the inspector general to look into whether Blanche’s earlier testimony about the Eric Adams case was truthful. Still, the Senate confirmed him on August 8th by a 50 to 49 vote, with only Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voting against their party.
We Deserve Better From The U.S. Attorney General
If the attorney general cannot say that beating a police officer with a flagpole deserves punishment, it shows exactly where accountability ends in this administration. It ends wherever Donald Trump chooses.
Blanche also told Welker he would listen to the president’s views on who should be prosecuted, and said Trump has never asked him to do anything unethical or illegal. In the same interview, he suggested the department might take its dispute over state voter rolls to the Supreme Court, which is another issue.
When you consider these statements along with his defense of the pardons, it becomes clear that in this Justice Department, the president’s preference matters more than the evidence.
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