Image: keystone
analysis
Todd Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Now the president wants to make him his attorney general.
July 16, 2026, 2:12 p.mJuly 16, 2026, 2:12 p.m
Donald Trump likes to gather people around him who are not really qualified. Or as Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian put it in their book “Trump’s Ten Commandments”: “Poorly qualified, overworked employees who often don’t even know exactly what they have to do (…) are exactly the people Trump wants, because that prevents neutral and independent power centers from emerging in his own team.”
There are numerous unqualified representatives in high positions in Trump’s cabinet, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or FBI Director Kash Patel, to name just the extreme examples. Pam Bondi, the former justice minister, was also included, but not her deputy, Todd Blanche. He is the exception that proves the rule, and the president wants him to replace his boss, who has now been fired.
Fired: former Attorney General Pam Bondi.Image: keystone
Blanche can look back on an impressive career. He comes from a humble background and has gradually worked his way up. First as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, the division of the US Department of Justice that is tasked with the most spectacular cases. Blanche later moved to Cadwalader, one of the most prestigious law firms in the USA. Politically, he leaned towards the Democrats at the time.
Then suddenly everything changed. Blanche was hired as Trump’s lawyer, left Cadwalader and became a Republican. A former colleague at this law firm told the Financial Times: “Someone who was loved and admired and held in high regard became someone we no longer know what to think of. He has become a different person.”
In the hearing of the Senate committee that decides on Blanche’s suitability to be Attorney General, Senator Adam Schiff also spoke about this personality change. “What happened to Todd Blanche, the prosecutor in the Southern District of New York?” said Schiff. “What happened to the prosecutor that everyone respected?”
Blanche found Trump via a detour. He once defended his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was accused of tax fraud and who was therefore convicted. Nevertheless, Blanche convinced the president. He had him represent him in the Stormy Daniels trial.
Although this trial was also lost – Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of the charge – Blanche had definitely gained the president’s trust.
By accepting the mandate as Trump’s defense attorney in the scandalous Stormy Daniels trial, he also had to leave the noble law firm Cadwalader. “These circles despise Donald Trump,” explains Joe Moreno, a former colleague. “It took a lot of courage for Todd to leave Cadwalader, start his own company and defend the president.”
If the Senate confirms Blanche as Minister of Justice, then this courage will have paid off. However, this is currently still uncertain. Critics accuse the once-respected prosecutor of having become a spineless sycophant in Trump’s service. They give three examples of this accusation:
- In the Epstein affair, Blanche, who was then deputy justice minister, visited Ghislaine Maxwell. She was the sex criminal’s closest confidante and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role as a co-conspirator. Blanche visited her there – that in itself was more than unusual – and conducted a harmless interview with her, which was clearly intended solely to exonerate Trump. As a reward, Maxwell was moved to a place that was more like a summer camp than a prison.
- Blanche is currently the provisional Minister of Justice. In this role he brought the charges against James Comey. He accuses the former FBI director of encouraging Trump’s murder. The reason he gives is that Comey formed the number combination “86 47” with shells on the beach. To understand: At 86, service employees refer to a canceled order, Trump is the 47th US President. To derive a death threat from this is a very steep thesis.
- What weighs most heavily, however, is Blanche’s role in the affair surrounding the severance payment that the state is supposed to pay to Trump. An employee of the tax authority provided the New York Times with the president’s tax documents, which show that he pays virtually no taxes. Trump then sued the state for $10 billion. However, he then concluded a settlement under which the state would pay $1.8 billion into a fund from which participants in the storming of the Capitol would be compensated. Blanche not only approved this scandalous settlement, but also signed it herself.
That’s largely why 1,200 former Justice Department employees called on Senate committee members to reject Blanche’s nomination. They warn that Trump’s former lawyer will transform the Justice Department into an entity that only serves the president’s interests rather than the American people.
They might be successful. Because of the death of Lindsey Graham, all it takes is one Republican dissenter to slow Blanche down. Meanwhile, the provisional justice minister is fighting for his reputation and emphasizes that he is not a yes man. However, he is also fighting for his future. If the Senate refuses to approve him, he will be left with nothing, because Trump will then – like many before him – drop him in cold blood.