The United States Justice Department under President Donald Trump has undergone an evolution, of sorts, this month with the ouster of Pam Bondi as attorney general, to be replaced by her top deputy — and fellow former Trump lawyer — Todd Blanche.
But as a pair of court filings Tuesday illustrated, the Blanche regime at DOJ may end up being an even less restrained version of what emerged during the first year of Trump’s second presidency: A traditionally independent agency increasingly unmoored by restrictions around political calculations and unshielded from the personal whims of the president.
The biggest news of the day in Washington — save for the state visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla — was the re-indictment of James Comey, FBI director during the end of Barack Obama’s presidency and into Trump’s first term until his 2017 firing by Trump. With Bondi having failed at prosecuting Comey, Blanche is now taking his shot at going after the retired G-man for his boss, this time relating to a quickly-deleted Instagram post that the acting AG claimed on Tuesday constituted a threat to “kill” the president.
“You cannot threaten to kill the president of the United States. Full stop,” said a breathless Blanche at a press conference, as he defended charging Comey nearly a year later over a single Instagram post depicting the numbers “86” and “47” written in seashells on a North Carolina beach.
Comey denied that his post threatened or sought to inspire violence of any kind. Constitutional law experts reacted to the news with derision, noting that Comey’s post would almost certainly be held by a judge to be protected speech under established Supreme Court precedent around “political hyperbole”.
But some warn that the desired effect of the indictments themselves remained, even if the likelihood of conviction was low to nonexistent.
“The indictment is absurd on its face and shows once again how far the Department of Justice has fallen in just over a year,” David Ogden, a former deputy AG now senior counsel for Democracy Defenders, told The Independent. “Any serious lawyer would know that the conduct they have indicted here is protected by the First Amendment.“
He added: “It shows, once again, that DOJ is entirely under the President’s thumb and exercising no independent legal or constitutional judgment of its own. There’s no reason to think that is going to change under Todd Blanche. “
Steve Salky, a Washington D.C.- based attorney who runs a service tracking unusual prosecutions brought by the DOJ since January 2025 for the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers, likened the second go at prosecuting Comey to the wide array of charges brought by the agency against protesters who clashed with federal immigration enforcement agents last year, in places like the nation’s capital where federal law enforcement resources were surged. The case tracker has analyzed dozens of prosecutions, only a handful of which ended in guilty verdicts or pleas.
“Hundreds and hundreds of cases were brought, many of which ultimately were dismissed, and those that went to trial often the defendants were quickly acquitted, but they still brought them, because as you say the goal was not to achieve a conviction but to chill First Amendment activity,” Salky explained.
“The number of acquittals was extraordinarily high, but it didn’t seem to matter, is my point. So the charging itself is the goal, right? Not the end product,” he said.
The Comey case represents a major issue for top DOJ officials who maintain that the agency acts independently of the White House. The first prosecution of the former FBI director came only days after Trump publicly urged Bondi in a Truth Social post to prosecute him and others in a message later reported to have been meant as a direct, private message (and command ) to the attorney general.
The latest iteration posed new uncomfortable questions for Blanche, who was pressed Tuesday by reporters what changed in the nearly one year since Comey made the post, then deleted it with an apology and explanation. The former FBI director was interviewed by Secret Service shortly after the initial controversy erupted, and nothing was made of the case for months afterwards. Blanche couldn’t give a definitive answer.
“This investigation just didn’t just come [up] now,” Blanche insisted, claiming that law enforcement conducted work for months after Comey’s post was made and deleted.
His argument defending the seriousness of his team’s efforts were undermined, however, by a wholly separate filing late Monday in a case seeking to allow the construction of Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom to proceed.
The filing from Blanche’s DOJ, made just before midnight, reads like a Trump Truth Social post and accuses litigants of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” while boasting about the supposed value presented by the construction project. The audience-of-one vibe was unmistakable through the filing, which read in part: “But, because it is DONALD J. TRUMP, a highly successful real estate developer, who has abilities that others don’t, especially those who assume the Office of President, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed.”
Random capitalizations aside, the filing does little more than encourage the agency’s reputation as having morphed into Trump’s own personal legal firm. At the same time, it was a similar use of the agency’s resources to the prosecution’s of Trump’s enemies and critics, in a way. The filing is written for public viewing, not effect, and illustrates how in some fashion the Department of Justice now operates less as a law enforcement agency and more as an aggressive comms shop for the president himself, willing to use any medium to send messages of loyalty to the president while generating negative press for his opponents.
The Independent reached out to DOJ for comment regarding the eroded perception of its independence from the White House under Trump.
“That filing is another embarrassment to the Department of Justice,” said Ogden. “I found it hard to believe as I read it.”
It certainly shows a lack of seriousness – no judge will be amused. But more concerning, by adopting the President’s own inflammatory style and voice DOJ has once again demonstrated that they are completely under his thumb,” he added of the larger effect to the agency. “The credibility of the Department and Americans’ faith in the rule of law depends on believing the Justice Department is governed by law and not the whims of those in power. So much of what they are doing now day after day is destroying that faith.”
Bondi found her tenure as AG tarred almost immediately by the uproar over the Jeffrey Epstein case and her decision to halt the release of files from the investigation into the billionaire pedophile’s sex crimes closed after Epstein’s death in 2019. Trump was also provably dissatisfied, however, with Bondi’s resistance to filing more criminal charges against Trump’s perceived foes.
Blanche’s actions since taking over the role are a sign that he is eager to eliminate any shows of independence or resistance. And in the end it may be the acting AG’s frankness about the situation that prevails. In an NBC News interview earlier this month, Blanche not only defended those efforts to prosecute Trump’s enemies, he defended the greater concept of Trump directing those prosecutions himself.
“There is outsized focus” oh the cases against Trump’s enemies, “because they involve individuals that the president has had significant issues,” Blanche told NBC.
But directing the use of federal law enforcement resources, including to punish his enemies, is “what being the commander in chief is about,” Blanche added.
