The deputy attorney general is joining the ongoing debate at the White House over invoking a powerful “state-secrets privilege” to keep a judge from discovering exactly when highly unusual deportation flights took off from U.S. soil to a feared El Salvador prison.
Todd Blanche, the second-in-command at the Department of Justice and President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, made the revelation in a court filing Friday morning vaguely describing his “direct involvement in ongoing Cabinet-level discussions regarding invocation of the state-secrets privilege.”
The disclosure indicates how seriously the Trump administration is taking the matter, which could deepen a fight over the extent of the president’s power to continue his aggressive deportation policy.