President-elect Trump has chosen Todd Blanche, an attorney who led the legal team that defended the Republican at his hush money criminal trial, to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official. A former federal prosecutor, Blanche has been a key figure on Trump's defense team both in the New York case that ended in a conviction in May, and the federal cases brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. "Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long," Trump said in a statement Thursday announcing his pick.
If confirmed as deputy attorney general by the Republican-led Senate, Blanche would manage the day-to-day operations of the sprawling Justice Department, which Trump has vowed to radically overhaul. The announcement comes a day after the president-elect said he had chosen as attorney general Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump loyalist who once faced a Justice Department sex trafficking investigation that ended in no charges. Trump is appointing two other members of his defense team to high-ranking Justice Department positions:
- Emil Bove: The former federal prosecutor, will be the principal associate deputy attorney general and will serve as acting deputy attorney general until Blanche is confirmed, Trump said.
- D. John Sauer: The lawyer who successfully argued Trump's presidential immunity case before the US Supreme Court will be the solicitor general, representing the administration before the high court. Sauer, who was previously Missouri's solicitor general, was a Rhodes scholar and served as a Supreme Court clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Blanche represented Trump in both the 2020 election interference case in Washington and the Florida case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. In both cases, the defense team successfully mounted a legal strategy focused heavily on delaying the cases until after the election.
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