DOJ’s No. 2 Official Asks Lawyers to Join ‘War’ Against Judges

Todd Blanche, second-in-command at the Justice Department, described a “war” against the federal judiciary and called on young conservative lawyers in the audience to join the fight against so-called “activist judges.”

“It’s a war, man,” Blanche, the deputy attorney general, told judges and lawyers Friday at a Federalist Society event in Washington, before describing instances where the government has ping-ponged between lower and appellate courts. “It’s happening over and over and over again.”

And he put out a call to young lawyers, who are “hungry and thirsty,” to join the Justice Department and the fight.

“We need you, because it is a war, and it’s something we will not win unless we keep on fighting,” Blanche said. “It’s hard to get the media, it’s hard to get the American people to focus on what a travesty it is when you have an individual judge be able to stop an entire operation or an entire administrative policy that’s constitutional and allowed just because he or she chooses to do so. So, it’s a war.”

Blanche made his comments during an event with moderator Gene Hamilton, co-founder of the conservative legal advocacy group America First Legal and a former Trump White House aide.

Blanche’s remarks come amid tensions between the Trump administration and federal courts. Administration officials have been accused of not fully complying with federal court orders against it.

President Donald Trump and other conservative allies have publicly criticized federal judges, and their family members, by name after decisions against the government, and House Republicans have filed articles of impeachment against judges who ruled against the administration.

Meanwhile, some judges have expressed frustration with having to interpret guiding case law in major cases following the Supreme Court’s orders without explanation issued through its emergency docket reversing lower court rulings.

Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Trump, accused federal district judges of defying Supreme Court rulings and of “micromanaging” the executive branch with rulings against the government. He noted the federal government has often lost cases challenging administration policies at the lower court, but later won at the conservative US Supreme Court.

Fighting Activists

The federal government’s civil lawyers are “bouncing around this country fighting these activist judges,” who are “more political, or certainly as political, as the most liberal governor or DA,” Blanche said.

He similarly criticized “activist” bar associations, which handle attorney licensing and disciplinary procedures, after Justice Department lawyers have faced bar complaints during this administration for their conduct in court.

The department plans to start a new system where any complaints against trial attorneys and prosecutors are handled “in-house” within the department’s own ethics unit, Blanche said.

“We’re going to do everything we can to take these activist bars, and DC is right at the top—is at the top—out of the picture,” Blanche said.

Weaponization

Blanche also defended the Justice Department against claims that its been politically weaponized.

Critics have said the department has been politicized following prosecutions of Trump’s perceived political enemies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. Those charges were filed after Trump called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action on those cases in a social media post.

“When I read now that we’re weaponizing, I feel like I’m being gaslit. Because we’re doing exactly the opposite,” Blanche said.

Legal proceedings against Trump and others over the past four years, under former President Joe Biden, were “batshit crazy,” Blanche said.

He pointed to the multiple criminal charges across the country against Trump during the Biden administration, and said he’s rolled back investigations initiated for the “wrong reasons.”

“I hope that time heals wounds, and I hope that we move forward as a country—and we will—back to when the Department of Justice is doing justice,” he said. “But I take umbrage at the idea that the work our prosecutors is doing is weaponization. Because I have receipts.”