Justice Connection today sent a letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by more than 1,200 former DOJ employees spanning 14 administrations and thousands of years of collective experience, opposing the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General.
“Since his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche has shown time and again that his guiding star is fealty to the President, not the Constitution,” said Stacey Young, executive director and founder of Justice Connection. “That fealty led to the purge of thousands of experienced career employees, a loss that will have a generational impact on the Justice Department’s ability to carry out its mission and maintain credibility with the courts and the American people.”
While many will discuss the corruption and abuses at the Justice Department under Blanche’s leadership — and rightly so — this letter highlights the dangerous degradation of DOJ’s apolitical career workforce.
Under Blanche’s watch, over 16,000 employees have left the department, including more than a quarter of its attorneys. Agents, analysts, attorneys, immigration judges, and professional staff have been fired for declining to initiate vindictive prosecutions, refusing to lie in court, or for pursuing assigned cases the President didn’t like. Many more have resigned, often for fear of being asked to carry out unethical actions. Still others have been made to abandon their mission-critical work to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C. and other cities, or defend habeas cases in the wake of unprecedented immigration enforcement surges.
As the letter says, “The consequences of Blanche’s attacks on DOJ’s apolitical workforce radiate beyond the halls of Main Justice, affecting the entire country. They’ve meant that much of the department’s vital work isn’t being done, or isn’t being done as well – leaving communities less safe, Americans’ rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable.”
The letter’s signatories include former officials who served during Republican and Democratic administrations, including dozens of U.S. attorneys, component heads, and other senior leaders, many of whom led major offices across the department and FBI. They also include signatories who worked in 77 U.S. Attorney’s Offices, dozens of whom worked in Blanche’s former office in the Southern District of New York.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche on July 15 and 16. This letter urges committee members to reject his nomination.
