Fat Elephant

Fat Elephant

AG Blanche Will Not Stand for Beria-Style Investigations

M Dowling

Appearing with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Attorney General Todd Blanche discussed Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia telling the Trump administration to “lawyer up.”

“[W]hat we have seen over the past several days, and even over the past several weeks, are outright threats, many by elected members of Congress and some senators, against anybody that’s conservative and anybody that happens to be a Republican,” Blanche said. “They have threatened donors. They have threatened individuals who are in college and might want to work for conservative institutions or for a conservative government or for President Trump. And that is extremely troubling, and it should be troubling to everybody in this country.”

“And over the last several days, we have seen the rhetoric even rise up, to the point where, … before they’re even in power, they’re already talking about investigations and impeachments, with no basis, no facts, just out there running around,” Blanche added. “That should be something that President Trump is very concerned about, and certainly I am as well.”

Bash asked if he was concerned about Democrats using their constitutional oversight role to investigate the administration.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no,” Blanche interrupted so her framing wouldn’t stand. “They have a very unique role in oversight. I agree. Have you been listening to the rhetoric the past couple days?” Blanche asked Bash. “You honestly think that all they’re doing is talking about their oversight obligations when they’re talking about going after basically every member of the Cabinet, they’re talking about impeachments, they’re talking about going after companies, private companies who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple of years?”

She asked him about Trump’s order to investigate Democrats’ alleged threats and what crime they may have committed.

“You have free speech in this country. You are allowed to be critical of President Trump, of me, of this administration,” Blanche responded. “But when the threats become so vile and so dangerous that you are telling people in college that they better be careful if they want to work in the Trump administration because somebody will come after them, at some point, you have to draw the line.”

Blanche is not going to investigate every case, but said it’s ridiculous if young people are threatened for working with the administration.

Garcia later appeared on “State of the Union,”  and tried to challenge the attorney general’s remarks.

Essentially, Garcia doesn’t want the DOJ to defend the administration if his Oversight Committee abuses its power to punish the administration or companies or youth just for working with the president. Garcia sounds like he wants to run the committee like a rabid dog trying to take down its prey. That approach would please Democrats’ communist wing.

“[I]it is ridiculous that we have the attorney general saying to the American public that somehow he’s going to defend administration officials, when his job is to defend the Constitution and the Department of Justice, to be the people’s lawyer,” Garcia told Bash. “And, quite frankly, what Todd Blanche is doing right now is a threat. He is threatening our committee.”

Watch the video of the exchange here.

Dana doesn’t want him to defend the administration. That’s novel.

He had to break the news to her that the Justice Department always represents the executive branch in every administration. Blanche also offered to mail Robert Garcia a copy of the Constitution in response to her Gotcha questions.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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