Acting AG Blanche Denies Retribution Campaign Against Trump Foes

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche denied to CBS News that the Justice Department is running a retribution campaign against President Trump's adversaries. He pushed back on criticism from former President Barack Obama but argued that Mr. Trump holds vast power to oversee the agency.

The Justice Department, which Blanche has led since last month after serving as second-in-command, has drawn months of scrutiny for filing criminal charges against Trump opponents. Those include former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Critics say the department, which has long kept an arms-length relationship with the White House, is shedding its reputation as an apolitical agency.

In a Wednesday interview with CBS News in Phoenix, Blanche dismissed allegations of a retribution campaign as "simply false." He said prosecutors are "doing our jobs" and "making America safe again."

Blanche described the latest indictment against Comey, which accused the former FBI director of threatening the 47th president by posting a photo of seashells arranged to form the numbers "86 47," as one of thousands of cases the Justice Department brings each year. He said local prosecutors and local agents led the case.

"I don't even know their names," Blanche said of the North Carolina-based federal prosecutors.

Obama added to the criticism on Tuesday during an appearance with late-night host Stephen Colbert. He voiced concern over "the politicization of our justice system" and the danger that "whoever is in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies." His comments did not name Mr. Trump but seemed aimed at the president.

"The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants to prosecute," Obama said.

Responding to Obama, Blanche pulled out a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution and turned to the section on the executive branch.

"Article Two says, 'the executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States of America.' It does not say that the Attorney General stands off to the side," Blanche said.

He pointed out that he serves in Mr. Trump's Cabinet and argued the president can lead the country "in all areas," including criminal justice.

"To the extent that President Trump calls me and says that he thinks that we have a problem in this country, whether it's the scourge of drugs, illegal immigration," he said, "every American wants him to do that, and he should."

Comey and James were first indicted last fall on charges of lying to Congress and bank fraud, respectively. Courts tossed out those cases because the interim U.S. attorney who oversaw the prosecutions was invalidly appointed. Just before those charges emerged, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social urging Blanche's predecessor, Attorney General Pam Bondi, to investigate Comey, James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff.

Blanche declined to discuss his conversations with Mr. Trump when asked if the president directs him to prosecute specific people.

"But rest assured, he has much better, bigger and important things to do than to worry about me doing my job," Blanche said. "And I wake up with a very clean conscience every morning. We are absolutely doing nothing but what we should be doing at the Department of Justice."

Blanche labeled Democratic claims that Mr. Trump is targeting opponents as "extraordinarily rich." He noted the many criminal charges Mr. Trump faced before returning to office last year from state prosecutors in New York and Georgia plus a federal special counsel. Blanche had served as Mr. Trump's defense attorney in some of those cases.

"So I welcome criticism. Let's go. But if you're sitting in a glass house, you ought not throw stones," he said.