SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
It's been just over a week since Todd Blanche was confirmed as U.S. attorney general, and he now says he will not commit that the Justice Department he oversees is free from White House influence.
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TODD BLANCHE: There's a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case and act independently of the White House. No, I'm not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that.
PFEIFFER: That was Blanche on NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday. Blanche was President Trump's private criminal defense lawyer before he joined DOJ. He told NBC he's willing to break from the president on legal matters. But he said, quote, "of course," end quote, he'll consider the president's opinions.
We have Aaron Davis on the line to talk about this. He's a reporter with ProPublica and coauthor of "Injustice: How Politics And Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department." Good morning.
AARON DAVIS: Thanks for having me, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: Would you first share your general thoughts when you heard the attorney general's comments this weekend?
DAVIS: You know, Todd Blanche repeated this idea not once but twice in that interview yesterday. And he sought to portray these comments as no big deal, as historically insignificant - that every attorney general does it. Or he suggested that, you know, it's just the way things work. But the reality is that this now Senate-confirmed chief law enforcement officer in the land - Blanche's comments were groundbreaking in the way that they really represent a shift in how the Justice Department has operated since Watergate.
You only have to go back five years to the day that President Biden announced Merrick Garland as his attorney general nominee to see how radical the change is. Biden pointed to Garland on TV and said, you don't answer to me. You answer to the Constitution and the rule of law. And what Biden said wasn't unique. It was, like, what every president had said since Nixon, you know, especially when it came to criminal justice and criminal prosecutions.
PFEIFFER: And if we go farther back in history, is there a precedent for an AG saying that he or she will not act independently of the White House?
DAVIS: There really is not. You know, for our book we looked at this. And, you know, this area, especially this area of criminal prosecutions, is the sole province of the Justice Department and its attorneys to carefully review the facts of a given case. And if the facts merited prosecution, then the government went forward, and if it didn't, they did not go forward. You know, and where there were cases of gray areas, no one was consulting with the political head of a party sitting in the White House about a singular prosecution. What Blanche is saying is that Americans can now assume that there is a conversation with the president, and that is factoring into his decisions about criminal prosecution of individual Americans.
PFEIFFER: One major issue that almost prevented Blanche from getting confirmed was this so-called antiweaponization fund of $1.8 billion. It was envisioned as a way to pay people who claim that the Biden Justice Department harmed them, and it came as part of Trump's settlement with the IRS. Even Republicans - some Republicans oppose that fund. Blanche said on Sunday the fund was dead, but are there other ways that the department could still find ways to pay January 6 rioters?
DAVIS: Yeah. He kind of touched on this. He said if somebody else brings a case against the United States, be it - you know, he didn't say any names, but be it the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys - you know, any one of Donald Trump's allies who thought they were wronged, that, in fact, the Justice Department could decide that they're right. And they could decide to settle that case. So it does raise a question about how they will handle individual claims brought against the government going forward.
And all of that doesn't touch even on the other part of that whole agreement about whether DOJ has really foreclosed at this point in time on the potential to prosecute Trump of tax evasion - all the things that were wrapped up in that IRS audit that was the other half of that agreement.
PFEIFFER: Yeah. So briefly, if Blanche is saying that it's - that he might work with the White House in some capacity, what does that leave in terms of firewalls between White House and DOJ?
DAVIS: Well, that's a big question here, right? And it's kind of - it really points to how much of our democracy is built on trust and, when it comes to criminal justice, the hope that somewhere high up in the government, someone is working to be a fair arbiter of right and wrong. And if Americans can't trust decisions about such cases are being made in an apolitical fashion and in line with the law, we've lost something profound and sustaining for a healthy democracy.
PFEIFFER: That's Aaron Davis. He's a reporter with ProPublica. Thank you.
DAVIS: Sacha, thank you so much for having me.
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