As Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche prepares for his confirmation hearings this week, he has an army of current attorneys general who believe that he is up to the task.
Austin Knudsen, Montana’s Attorney General and Chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), explained to the Washington Reporter why he believes that Blanche is the man for the job.
“Americans rightly expect their leaders to deliver results, which is exactly what Todd Blanche has done over the last few months,” Knudsen explained. “He is holding dangerous criminals accountable for their actions and as a result, the murder rate is the lowest it’s been since 1900 and the DEA has arrested more than 6,300 fentanyl traffickers who were poisoning our communities. And under his leadership, the U.S. Department of Justice is actively working to recover billions of American tax dollars lost to fraud and prevent more fraud. His confirmation as the next United States Attorney General is crucial to furthering these recent successes.”
For months, Knudsen has been rallying his fellow GOP AGs to back Blanche for the nation’s top law enforcement role. In June, Knudsen and 22 other Republican attorneys general wrote to Sens. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) of the Judiciary Committee to “express our strong support for the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as the next Attorney General of the United States.”
The attorneys general laid out a series of reasons for why they back Blanche, including his experience as a prosecutor, his successes at the Supreme Court, his work tackling fraud, and his work to “end discrimination on the basis of race, life-altering gender reassignment surgeries on minors, and the weaponization of our justice system.”
“The Department under Mr. Blanche’s leadership has won approximately 80% of its cases at the United States Supreme Court,” they wrote. “The Department has substantially expanded prosecutions, securing tens of thousands more prosecutions than in comparable periods under the prior administration while successfully targeting organized criminal enterprises, including hundreds of indictments involving Tren de Aragua and other violent gangs,” they added. “The FBI has captured eight of its ten Most Wanted fugitives, disrupted thousands of gangs and criminal enterprises, located thousands of missing children, and arrested thousands of child predators and human traffickers.”
While Blanche’s hearings are likely to devolve into a partisan circus, the attorneys general directly addressed his critics as well: “Mr. Blanche’s critics have no serious objection to his qualifications, character, or leadership. What they really oppose is President Trump’s agenda. And because Mr. Blanche has been so successful at implementing those policies, they would prefer he not be at the helm. We, thus, urge the Committee to disregard these complaints.”
Joining Knudsen in writing to Grassley and Durbin are Attorneys General Steve Marshall, Cori Mills, Tim Griffin, James Uthmeier, Christopher Carr, Raúl Labrador, Todd Rokita, Brenna Bird, Kris Kobach, Russell Coleman, Liz Murrill, Lynn Fitch, Catherine Hanaway, Mike Hilgers, Drew Wrigley, Dave Yost, Alan Wilson, Marty Jackley, Jonathan Skrmetti, Ken Paxton, Derek Brown, and JB McCuskey.
