Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday he will listen to President Trump’s advice on how to run the Department of Justice but will always act with “integrity.”
Mr. Blanche was sworn in as the nation’s top law enforcement officer last week, a few days after the Senate confirmed him to the post. He had been serving as acting attorney general for months after Pam Bondi left the Justice Department in April.
The 49 senators — two Republicans and all Democrats — who opposed Mr. Blanche’s confirmation expressed concerns that he would not be able to shed his past role as Mr. Trump’s personal attorney in leading the Justice Department.
Mr. Blanche was asked Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he could pledge the Justice Department will always act independently of the White House.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he said. Mr. Blanche said taking such a pledge would mean he would have to refuse the president’s instructions for the Justice Department to go after every violent criminal in this country, which he is not prepared to do.
“So I will act with integrity. Our prosecutors will act with integrity. We will prosecute without fear or any sort of favor,” he said. “And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. And that’s what every Department of Justice should do.”
Mr. Blanche said that the media narrative that Mr. Trump would ask him to do something illegal is “false” and that he would not cross such a line.
“The president will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal,” the attorney general said. “He never has. He never will. And no, I swore to the Constitution of the United States like every Cabinet secretary has done and like every attorney general before me has done.”
But Mr. Blanche said he would “of course” take the president’s opinions into consideration.
“The president of the United States, the elected president of the United States, says something to me. And I’m supposed to say to you, ‘I would say no.’ I mean, that’s not the way it works,” he said.
That does not mean saying yes to whatever the president wants, Mr. Blanche said.
“I will always stand up for what’s right,” he said. “And so of course, there’s vigorous back and forth with every cabinet member of the president of the United States, which is exactly what President Trump expects.”
