Todd Blanche built his career on loyalty to Trump… but now he’s drinking from the poisoned chalice that wiped out Pam Bondi
Todd Blanche, now leading the US Justice Department, is struggling to deliver the aggressive prosecutions of Donald Trump's political adversaries that his predecessor, Pam Bondi, also failed to achieve before her removal. The president has long targeted former officials including ex-FBI director James Comey, former national security adviser John Bolton and ex-CIA director John Brennan, but efforts to prosecute them have largely stalled or collapsed, undermining Blanche's attempt to prove his loyalty to Trump through results.
Charges against Comey have already been dismissed by a federal judge, and Bolton, despite pleading guilty to a classified documents charge, is expected to avoid prison. The main focus now is a two-pronged Justice Department investigation in the Southern District of Florida into Brennan, examining whether he lied to Congress about the Steele dossier and his alleged role in the 2016 Russia probe into Trump's campaign. Trump ally Joseph DiGenova was installed in April to lead the effort after his predecessor doubted it would yield an indictment, and DiGenova had predicted charges within two months, but progress has since fallen well short of those expectations, with neither the Florida US attorney's office nor the Justice Department commenting on the investigations' status.
- Todd Blanche struggles to prosecute Trump's foes, as Bondi did before him
- Comey charges dismissed; Bolton unlikely to face jail time
- Brennan investigation in Florida progressing slower than allies expected
New here? Start with this
Todd Blanche is the current US Attorney General, appointed to run the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump. He took over from Pam Bondi, who had faced pressure to bring criminal cases against people Trump considers political enemies, but left office without securing the convictions Trump wanted. Blanche, who previously worked as one of Trump's personal defence lawyers, is now under similar pressure to deliver results.
The officials in question include James Comey, a former FBI director; John Bolton, a former national security adviser; and John Brennan, a former CIA director. Trump has long accused these men of wrongdoing linked to investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and its aftermath, though attempts to charge them have repeatedly run into legal difficulties, including a dismissed case and a plea deal expected to avoid jail time.
This matters because it raises questions about how far a president can direct the Justice Department to pursue his critics, and whether prosecutors are acting on solid evidence or political instruction. The department's ability to bring a case against Brennan, its current focus, is being watched as a test of whether these long-running efforts can produce any actual charges.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of these investigations argue that concerns about the conduct of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials during the 2016 Russia inquiry were never properly resolved, and that figures such as Brennan and Comey should face the same legal scrutiny as any other citizen accused of misleading Congress or mishandling classified material. They see a Justice Department finally willing to pursue allegations that, in their view, were previously shielded by professional courtesy or institutional self-protection, and regard convictions such as Bolton's guilty plea as vindication that the underlying concerns had substance rather than being purely political theatre.
The case against
Critics warn that these prosecutions look less like even-handed law enforcement and more like a president directing the Justice Department to punish named personal adversaries, a concern reinforced by the appointment of a Trump loyalist to lead the Brennan inquiry after his predecessor doubted the evidence supported charges, and by the swift collapse of the Comey case in court. They value prosecutorial independence and due process, and fear that using federal power to chase results against specific critics – regardless of how thin the evidence proves to be – sets a precedent that erodes public trust in impartial justice, whichever administration is in office.