Attorney General Todd Blanche is set to speak Wednesday night at the most partisan of events — the Republican Party’s midterm convention — weeks after a Senate confirmation fight that focused largely on his potential to politicize the Department of Justice.
Blanche is scheduled to take the stage between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET at what has been billed as a “Trump-a-palooza.” He is appearing on a roster of speakers that includes numerous congressional candidates, other administration officials and President Donald Trump himself.
His planned remarks at the arena in Dallas represent a sharp departure from Justice Department norms and would have been barred by department policy had Trump administration officials not quietly changed the rules last year, according to former DOJ officials.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee criticized the move, accusing Blanche of violating federal law — ostensibly the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activities of federal employees. “Amazing how far the DOJ has fallen,” the committee’s Democrats said on social media.
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In response, the Justice Department said Blanche was appearing in his “personal capacity,” that his appearance was legal and had been “approved by ethics.”
Blanche already broke with DOJ tradition last month when he spoke at a political rally in New York and praised a Republican candidate for governor.
His speech Wednesday is without modern precedent. In 1964, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy spoke at the Democratic National Convention, but to pay tribute to his late brother, former President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated the previous November.
Attorneys general and other senior law-enforcement leaders generally don’t participate in overtly political events to avoid the appearance of using the immense weight of the Justice Department to tip the balance in an election, former DOJ officials said.
“The idea that Todd Blanche could speak at this type of event and people not take it as an official speech of his office is pure fiction,” said Joseph Tirrell, a former DOJ senior ethics official. “And he could very well ruin the fiction altogether if he says anything that makes clear he’s speaking in his official capacity, or if he starts talking about election enforcement. If he mentions where he works, if he mentions activities or programs by the Department of Justice, even if he says good things about protecting elections and making sure they’re as free and fair, that’s crossing the line.”
Blanche’s close alignment with Trump, including his role as the president’s former criminal defense lawyer, came up repeatedly in his confirmation hearing over the summer. Democrats pressed him on whether he could be trusted to maintain the Justice Department’s historic independence from the White House.
During the proceeding, Blanche fumbled a softball question on the issue from Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), saying of Trump, “I’m his lawyer,” before correcting himself to say he “was his lawyer, and now I’m the deputy attorney general.” In a “Meet the Press” interview after his confirmation, Blanche refused to say he’d act independently from the White House.
The Hatch Act limits the political activities of two groups of federal employees: those known as “less restricted” and “further restricted.”
The “less restricted” group includes most career employees in the executive branch, as well as some political appointees, who are permitted to advocate for candidates or political organizations as long as they don’t do so in their official capacity.
The “further restricted” group covers officials in leadership positions. This includes national security leaders and others directly involved in law enforcement, as well as Federal Election Commission officials and other agency heads, who must adhere to much tighter limits.
Long-standing DOJ policy considered all political appointees in the department — even those who weren’t Senate-confirmed — as falling into the latter category. The policy was written more than 20 years ago and reauthorized with minor tweaks across Republican and Democratic administrations.
“They basically can vote, they can donate money, they can put campaign signs in their yard, and that’s really about it,” said Tirrell, who served as the Department of Justice’s ethics director until then-Attorney General Pam Bondi fired him last summer. “They can speak about a candidate in personal capacity, but they can’t do it in coordination with a campaign.”
Officials in the DOJ’s upper echelons were discouraged from attending even relatively small events to avoid the appearance of bringing the department’s imprimatur to a political campaign. Tirrell said he advised DOJ officials in prior administrations not to speak at local holiday events because others on the speaker docket were elected officials running for office. Even that presented an ethical concern, he said.
“That’s how far away from crossing the boundary we tried to keep people,” Tirrell said. “Even appearing on stage by a podium with a candidate for office was considered too fine a line. Even during the first Trump administration, this is the advice that was provided and this is the advice that was heeded, because they hadn’t taken the step to rescind that rule.”
Stacey Young, a former longtime Justice Department trial attorney who now heads the DOJ alum network Justice Connection, said DOJ leaders from both parties had long held political appointees to a high standard when it came to keeping partisan politics out of government.
“The American people must trust that the department’s legal judgments are impartial and insulated from politics,” she said in a statement. “The Attorney General knows this, yet sees no problem speaking at political rallies in New York and now at the RNC. These actions are extremely damaging to the department he leads, whether they comply with the letter of DOJ’s recently weakened policy or not.”
Former Attorney General Eric Holder called Blanche’s speech “disgraceful” in brief comments to NewsNation on Tuesday. “Attorneys general don’t talk about political things,” Holder said. “He shouldn’t be there.”
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