(CNN) — 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’s political agenda.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that,” Blanche told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” 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 “prosecute without fear or any sort of favor.”
Blanche — Trump’s former personal defense attorney who was confirmed by the Senate last weekend after serving in an acting capacity since April — also suggested he’d take the president’s views into account in individual prosecution decisions.
“Every American has a voice in prosecutions… So whether President Trump should have a, quote, voice, it depends, but yes,” Blanche said when pressed on whether Trump should ever have such a say in light of the president’s call to revisit the Reflecting Pool vandalism case that the US Attorney for the District of Columbia recently dismissed.
“Will I take the president of the United States’ view on something into consideration? Yes, of course. And I hope every attorney general in history would not answer that question differently,” Blanche added.
The Justice Department has faced accusations of political dealing on Trump’s behalf amid indictments or attempted indictments against some of the president’s perceived political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
But during the “Meet the Press” interview and a separate interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Blanche insisted he has the ability to disagree with Trump.
“The president loves disagreement,” Blanche told Fox.
“He wants to get counsel from all of his leaders that is just that – counsel. It doesn’t mean you’re saying yes to him,” Blanche said, adding that Trump would “expect” him to tell him his honest feelings, even if the attorney general disagreed.
“There’s that misnomer about President Trump – which is that he wakes up in the morning, calls me up, and says ‘Todd, go prosecute this.’ That’s absolutely not the case.”
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.
“I absolutely support US attorney Pirro, as does President Trump. Now that’s different than whether the president is extraordinarily frustrated at what happened in that case, and I don’t in any way fault him for that.”
But Blanche also defended Pirro, saying she’s “doing a phenomenal job,” adding, “and I think judging her on a single case because of the evidence that we had is not fair.”
On an issue that Trump has made a focus of his second term — election integrity — 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’s midterms.
Trump has demanded states turn over unredacted voter rolls and other sensitive information — part of the administration’s efforts to insert itself in federal elections that was fueled by Trump’s longstanding and baseless assertions that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The administration has sued roughly 30 states that have refused to open their voter rolls to administration scrutiny, but has frequently lost in court.
Asked whether he would appeal those court losses to the Supreme Court, Blanche said it was a “possibility.”
“Absolutely, it’s a possibility,” Blanche told Welker.
“Election integrity is something that President Trump ran on, and the American people elected him. It’s something that every American should care about,” the attorney general added.
Blanche reiterated that Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund — which had threatened to derail his confirmation — is “dead,” 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’t include January 6, 2021, rioters.
“Well, anybody can file a claim against the federal government, not just anybody associated with January 6,” Blanche said.
“I’m not going to sit here and say on a news program whether a litigation that may or may not happen will result in money,” he added.
“I can’t do that. So, what I will say is that there’s a process in place for decades where somebody that believes they’ve been wronged, or a tort’s been committed against them by the federal government, can seek redress.”
The Justice Department formally rescinded the “anti-weaponization” fund that would have benefitted those who claimed they were mistreated by the federal government after it threatened to imperil Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general.
The-CNN-Wire
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