Dan Abrams Torches Todd Blanche, Warns He Just Revealed the Truth About the Trump DOJ

Dan Abrams tore into Attorney General Todd Blanche over his appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, arguing that Blanche inadvertently revealed a truth about how President Donald Trump’s Justice Department operates.

Blanche appeared alongside moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday, where he was asked about comments he made at a Friday rally in support of New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman. He vowed that under his lead, “If anybody touches a federal law enforcement officer in any way inappropriate, we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”

Welker pressed Blanche on how that pledge squared with Trump’s sweeping pardons for Jan. 6 defendants, including 172 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers. Blanche maintained there was “nothing inconsistent” about the two, arguing that his department could prosecute those who attack law enforcement even if a president later chooses to pardon them. He also declined to pledge that the DOJ would operate independently of the White House and said whether Trump should have a “voice” in individual prosecution decisions “depends.” Welker additionally grilled Blanche over the administration’s proposed anti-weaponization fund, which could have compensated people who claimed they were wronged by the federal government, including Jan. 6 defendants. Blanche repeatedly insisted the proposal was “dead” and that “there will be no fund.”

On Monday’s edition of The Dan Abrams Show, the Mediaite founder’s SiriusXM radio program, Abrams weighed in on Blanche’s remarks, noting that he believes the attorney general “likes” being interviewed by Welker “because she often doesn’t quite ask the right questions.” However, he acknowledged, this particular interview was effective in “expos[ing] how absurd the answers from Todd Blanche are.”

“We all know the president has the power to pardon, and she was right to follow up. That’s not the question! No one is saying he doesn’t have the power. She asked you, ‘Do you think it was wrong?’ And that’s where he has no good answer,” Abrams continued. “You can’t claim that you are the kind of attorney general who is gonna ensure that our police officers feel protected, and then say, ‘No, no, no, I don’t think the president did anything wrong by pardoning all of them.’ He’s playing this absurd semantic game.”

Abrams went on to play a clip of Blanche appearing on CNN in May to discuss the anti-weaponization fund, after which he stated, “No matter how bad the action is, if the president says, ‘That person supported me so I wanna make sure there’s no accountability,’ Todd Blanche is OK with that.”

Referring to the moment in the Meet the Press interview when the attorney general declined to pledge that the DOJ would operate independently of the White House, the Mediaite founder added, “Do you listen to the word salads that this guy is offering? ‘No attorney general should ever pledge that?’ Why?… That’s not what independent means! It doesn’t mean you should do the opposite of everything that [Trump] says. It means you need to make the decisions yourself.”

Lastly, referencing the moment when Welker asked if Blanche would follow through with a Trump request that he felt “crosses an ethical or legal line,” Abrams said, “We know he’s already asked him to do things that are unethical… How dumb does Todd Blanche think that we in the public are?”

Watch the clip above via YouTube.

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