Trump Deputy AG Boasts Purging DOJ and FBI of Trump Investigators
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney now serving as the number two official at the Justice Department, publicly boasted at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference that the administration has purged federal employees from the DOJ and FBI who were involved in investigating Trump. Blanche declared that Director Patel has “cleaned house” at the FBI, removing every agent who had any connection to Trump’s prosecution, and asserted that employees in the executive branch must demonstrate absolute loyalty to the sitting president.
Blanche stated that Trump has claimed authority over all executive branch workers, saying “if you work in the executive branch, you work for me,” and criticized past administrations for tolerating what he called “partisan actors” within the Justice Department. His remarks constituted an explicit acknowledgment of politically motivated purges designed to eliminate officials based on their prior duties investigating the president, demonstrating the administration’s abuse of power to weaponize federal institutions.
Legal experts and observers condemned Blanche’s statements as evidence of authoritarian governance. Anti-Trump national security lawyer Mark Zaid announced he would use Blanche’s remarks as evidence in ongoing litigation challenging the unlawful political firing of federal employees who performed their constitutional duties. The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols accused Blanche of deliberately lying, stating the lawyer knows his claims are false but advanced them anyway.
Social media responses characterized Blanche’s boasting as bragging about staffing the FBI exclusively with Trump loyalists and abandoning merit-based hiring. Critics described the admission as confirmation of an authoritarian takeover in which the Justice Department and intelligence agencies serve only the president’s personal interests rather than the American people or the rule of law. Multiple observers underscored that the purge eliminated career professionals simply for executing their jobs during prior investigations.