House Democrats on the Judiciary panel were equally pointed<\/a>:<\/p>\n In our history, no sitting U.S. Attorney General, Democrat or Republican, has ever appeared to speak at a political party convention. Until now. Tomorrow Todd Blanche will appear and speak at the national Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas where the party\u2019s working desperately to mobilize a demoralized MAGA to go vote for a party which has no plans for America. In other words, the nation\u2019s chief law enforcement officer will be violating federal law on national TV in front of the entire country. It\u2019s dumbfounding and unprecedented. Amazing how far the DOJ has fallen. We\u2019ll be watching.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The DOJ\u2019s response, posted from its official X account, was a swipe at Jack Smith: \u201cWhile Jack Smith may agree with you about violating federal law, the Hatch Act is available for everyone to read, and Todd Blanche\u2019s appearance this evening in his personal capacity is legal (and has been approved by ethics).\u201d<\/p>\n Approved by ethics! Great! Except\u2026 the DOJ\u2019s top ethics official was fired last year<\/a>. Joseph Tirrell, who served as the senior ethics attorney responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on their ethical obligations, was terminated by Pam Bondi in July 2025. So, the ethics office that \u201capproved\u201d Blanche\u2019s convention appearance is the same ethics office that was purged, and rebuilt under an administration that has fired employees for refusing to lie in court<\/a> and lost 16,000 employees<\/a> in the process. Pardon me if that assurance isn\u2019t worth much.<\/p>\n Despite its unprecedented nature, none of this is surprising, exactly. Blanche spent months performing for an audience of one<\/a> to secure the AG job, who introduced himself as Trump\u2019s lawyer at his own confirmation hearing<\/a>, and has former DOJ staff coming out of the woodwork saying he\u2019s not upholding his oath of office<\/a>. The convention speech is simply the next data point in a very consistent pattern: Blanche has hitched his wagon to Trump\u2019s political star \u2014 at least he\u2019s stopped pretending otherwise.<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Todd Blanche\u2019s Latest \u2018Disgraceful\u2019 Act? Speaking At A Political Convention<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Todd Blanche has been Attorney General for less than a month and he\u2019s already making history, just not the kind that gets you a good entry in the DOJ\u2019s institutional memory. On Wednesday night, Blanche appeared and spoke at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, becoming the first sitting Attorney General in American history to address a political party convention.<\/p>\n Eric Holder, who served as AG under Barack Obama and who has not been shy about this administration, had some thoughts. \u201cAttorneys general don\u2019t talk about political things,\u201d Holder told NewsNation\u2019s Joe Khalil<\/a>. \u201cHe shouldn\u2019t be there.\u201d He called the appearance \u201cunprecedented\u201d and \u201cdisgraceful.\u201d <\/p>\n House Democrats on the Judiciary panel were equally pointed<\/a>:<\/p>\n In our history, no sitting U.S. Attorney General, Democrat or Republican, has ever appeared to speak at a political party convention. Until now. Tomorrow Todd Blanche will appear and speak at the national Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas where the party\u2019s working desperately to mobilize a demoralized MAGA to go vote for a party which has no plans for America. In other words, the nation\u2019s chief law enforcement officer will be violating federal law on national TV in front of the entire country. It\u2019s dumbfounding and unprecedented. Amazing how far the DOJ has fallen. We\u2019ll be watching.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The DOJ\u2019s response, posted from its official X account, was a swipe at Jack Smith: \u201cWhile Jack Smith may agree with you about violating federal law, the Hatch Act is available for everyone to read, and Todd Blanche\u2019s appearance this evening in his personal capacity is legal (and has been approved by ethics).\u201d<\/p>\n Approved by ethics! Great! Except\u2026 the DOJ\u2019s top ethics official was fired last year<\/a>. Joseph Tirrell, who served as the senior ethics attorney responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on their ethical obligations, was terminated by Pam Bondi in July 2025. So, the ethics office that \u201capproved\u201d Blanche\u2019s convention appearance is the same ethics office that was purged, and rebuilt under an administration that has fired employees for refusing to lie in court<\/a> and lost 16,000 employees<\/a> in the process. Pardon me if that assurance isn\u2019t worth much.<\/p>\n Despite its unprecedented nature, none of this is surprising, exactly. Blanche spent months performing for an audience of one<\/a> to secure the AG job, who introduced himself as Trump\u2019s lawyer at his own confirmation hearing<\/a>, and has former DOJ staff coming out of the woodwork saying he\u2019s not upholding his oath of office<\/a>. The convention speech is simply the next data point in a very consistent pattern: Blanche has hitched his wagon to Trump\u2019s political star \u2014 at least he\u2019s stopped pretending otherwise.<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> Todd Blanche has been Attorney General for less than a month and he\u2019s already making history, just not the kind that gets you a good entry in the DOJ\u2019s institutional memory. On Wednesday night, Blanche appeared and spoke at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, becoming the first sitting Attorney General in American history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The Senate Confirmed Todd Blanche At 4am. Nothing Good Happens After Midnight.<\/a>
Todd Blanche Threading The Narrowest Of Needles For Confirmation<\/a>
The Trump Slush Fund Is Dead. Long Live The Trump Slush Fund.<\/a>
Paging Dr. Freud: Todd Blanche Calls Himself Trump\u2019s Lawyer At His Attorney General Confirmation Hearing<\/a>
Former DOJ Prosecutors To Senate: Blanche Took The Same Oath We Did. But He Didn\u2019t Keep It.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2277109829-300x200.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
\n
The Senate Confirmed Todd Blanche At 4am. Nothing Good Happens After Midnight.<\/a>
Todd Blanche Threading The Narrowest Of Needles For Confirmation<\/a>
The Trump Slush Fund Is Dead. Long Live The Trump Slush Fund.<\/a>
Paging Dr. Freud: Todd Blanche Calls Himself Trump\u2019s Lawyer At His Attorney General Confirmation Hearing<\/a>
Former DOJ Prosecutors To Senate: Blanche Took The Same Oath We Did. But He Didn\u2019t Keep It.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"