Folks are just coming out of the woodwork to oppose Donald Trump’s AG nominee. The latest addition to genre is a letter signed by 1200+ former Department of Justice employees — career prosecutors, FBI officials, and former U.S. Attorneys who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations — urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Todd Blanche’s nomination as Attorney General.
The letter, organized through The Justice Connection, makes a deliberate choice to narrow its focus. Rather than relitigate the full Blanche record, it zeroes in on what the signatories know firsthand: what Blanche has done to the department’s career workforce, and what that means for the Americans those employees were supposed to be protecting.
The numbers are staggering. The letter puts the total DOJ employee exodus at approximately 16,000 — larger than the 10,000-lawyer government-wide figure we covered last month because it includes non-attorney staff — with 21 percent of its attorneys exiting. The department has responded by lowering hiring standards, offering $25,000 signing bonuses, and deploying emergency jump teams to plug holes in understaffed offices, which the letter’s signatories note with something between contempt and despair.
Why are people leaving? The letter is specific: career employees have been fired for “declining to initiate vindictive prosecutions,” for “working on cases the president didn’t like,” for being relatives of the president’s political enemies, and for “refusing to lie in court.” We’ve covered the last category at some length — prosecutors purged for enforcing abortion clinic protections, AUSAs pressured to make false assertions to courts, the entire apparatus of ethical oversight systematically dismantled. The letter’s signatories are describing what they watched happen to their former colleagues, and their former institution.
The sharpest line in the letter involves Blanche’s own biography: he spent nearly a decade as a career DOJ prosecutor himself, and took the same oath these signatories took. “That oath now compels us to speak out against the nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General,” they write, “someone who took the same oath, but has utterly failed to abide by it.”
The practical consequences the letter describes are not abstract. A quarter of FBI staff were reassigned from criminal investigations to civil immigration enforcement. AUSAs from across the country were dispatched to patrol Washington and Minneapolis. Entire offices enforcing tax law, drug trafficking, and community violence were eliminated. Grand juries, the letter notes, have started refusing to deliver indictments they view as politically motivated. “Leaving communities less safe, Americans’ rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable” is how the signatories summarize the damage.
The letter closes by invoking John Adams’s “a government of laws, not of men,” and calling on the committee to reject Blanche’s nomination because he’s unfit to lead the department they dedicated their careers to. Of course Bill Barr says confirm him anyway, because it could be worse. Senators have quite the decision ahead of them.
Earlier:
- Senator Whitehouse Would Like To Tell You Exactly What He Thinks Of Todd Blanche
- Bill Barr Would Like The Senate To Know: Confirm Todd Blanche Or The Hostage Gets It
- ‘Todd Blanche Is Unfit For Office,’ Says The New York Times Editorial Board
- Senator Whitehouse Is Still Waiting For Todd Blanche To Explain The Ghislaine Maxwell Prison Transfer
- Todd Blanche Got The Attorney General Nomination. Getting Confirmed Is Another Matter.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post Former DOJ Prosecutors To Senate: Blanche Took The Same Oath We Did But He Didn’t Keep It appeared first on Above the Law.
Folks are just coming out of the woodwork to oppose Donald Trump’s AG nominee. The latest addition to genre is a letter signed by 1200+ former Department of Justice employees — career prosecutors, FBI officials, and former U.S. Attorneys who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations — urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Todd Blanche’s nomination as Attorney General.
The letter, organized through The Justice Connection, makes a deliberate choice to narrow its focus. Rather than relitigate the full Blanche record, it zeroes in on what the signatories know firsthand: what Blanche has done to the department’s career workforce, and what that means for the Americans those employees were supposed to be protecting.
The numbers are staggering. The letter puts the total DOJ employee exodus at approximately 16,000 — larger than the 10,000-lawyer government-wide figure we covered last month because it includes non-attorney staff — with 21 percent of its attorneys exiting. The department has responded by lowering hiring standards, offering $25,000 signing bonuses, and deploying emergency jump teams to plug holes in understaffed offices, which the letter’s signatories note with something between contempt and despair.
Why are people leaving? The letter is specific: career employees have been fired for “declining to initiate vindictive prosecutions,” for “working on cases the president didn’t like,” for being relatives of the president’s political enemies, and for “refusing to lie in court.” We’ve covered the last category at some length — prosecutors purged for enforcing abortion clinic protections, AUSAs pressured to make false assertions to courts, the entire apparatus of ethical oversight systematically dismantled. The letter’s signatories are describing what they watched happen to their former colleagues, and their former institution.
The sharpest line in the letter involves Blanche’s own biography: he spent nearly a decade as a career DOJ prosecutor himself, and took the same oath these signatories took. “That oath now compels us to speak out against the nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General,” they write, “someone who took the same oath, but has utterly failed to abide by it.”
The practical consequences the letter describes are not abstract. A quarter of FBI staff were reassigned from criminal investigations to civil immigration enforcement. AUSAs from across the country were dispatched to patrol Washington and Minneapolis. Entire offices enforcing tax law, drug trafficking, and community violence were eliminated. Grand juries, the letter notes, have started refusing to deliver indictments they view as politically motivated. “Leaving communities less safe, Americans’ rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable” is how the signatories summarize the damage.
The letter closes by invoking John Adams’s “a government of laws, not of men,” and calling on the committee to reject Blanche’s nomination because he’s unfit to lead the department they dedicated their careers to. Of course Bill Barr says confirm him anyway, because it could be worse. Senators have quite the decision ahead of them.
Earlier:
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
