WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general last month, reportedly for failing to successfully prosecute several of his perceived political foes.
Trump named Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, as Bondi's interim successor, and the ex-prosecutor has enthusiastically taken up the mantle of carrying out the Republican president's bidding.
"(Bondi) was running the Justice Department more like Donald Trump's personal law firm than like an impartial Department of Justice," said Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan.
"But it's only gotten worse, I think, since Todd Blanche came along," McQuade, a former US attorney, told AFP.
Bondi notably failed to bring cases to trial against former FBI director James Comey, an outspoken Trump critic, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a major civil real estate fraud case against Trump after he left the White House in 2021.
Since replacing Bondi, Blanche, the former number two in the Justice Department, has secured a new indictment of Comey -- for allegedly threatening Trump's life in an Instagram post that showed a picture of the numbers "8647" spelled out in seashells.
The indictment alleges that "86" is slang for kill and "47" a reference to Trump being the 47th president.
Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor, described the case against Comey as a "joke" while adding that "there's nothing funny about the abuse of power that it represents."
"This is not about prosecuting a legitimate criminal case," Eliason said in a Substack post. "It's about using the justice system to punish one of Trump's perceived enemies.
"Even if it does not result in a conviction," he said, "such a prosecution results in tremendous emotional and financial harm. And that's precisely the point."
Blanche has also taken aim recently at a prominent civil rights organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), long seen as a thorn in the side of right-wing groups.
The SPLC faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering over its use of donor money to pay confidential informants in hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America.
- 'Duty' -
At his first press conference after taking over from Bondi, Blanche defended investigations of individuals or groups Trump views as opponents.
"It is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president, in the past, has had issues with and believes should be investigated," he said. "That is his right, and indeed, it is his duty to do that."
Blanche dismissed allegations that the Department of Justice was being "weaponized" against Trump's enemies and alleged that there was "weaponization" of the department by the Biden administration, "the likes of which had never been seen in history."
Blanche was a member of Trump's defense team in his New York "hush money" trial and the two prosecutions brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, for allegedly mishandling classified documents and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The two federal cases were dropped after Trump won the 2024 White House race.
McQuade said the "very aggressive moves" by Blanche "give at least the appearance that he is auditioning for the job of attorney general by trying to do and say things that are likely to please President Trump."
Blanche can remain attorney general in an acting capacity for 210 days before he will need to obtain confirmation from the Senate.
In addition to encouraging cases against his perceived political opponents, Trump has also purged government officials he deems disloyal, targeted law firms involved in past cases against him, and pulled federal funding from universities.
Former Democratic president Barack Obama recently spoke out against the moves while declining to mention Trump by name.
"The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants to prosecute," Obama said on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."
"The norm is, the idea is, that the attorney general is the people's lawyer," Obama said. "It's not the president's consigliere."
By Selim Saheb Ettaba
- Article by AFP