Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s pick for deputy attorney general, acknowledged at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he remains the president’s lawyer. But he insisted that their close ties wouldn’t be a problem.
The tight-knit personal relationship he’s established with Trump over the past two years presents a major question over how he will handle the job of deputy attorney general — especially when he continues to claim that every prosecution against Trump was nothing but partisan hackery. Blanche attempted to assuage those concerns at his hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee, including saying that his close relationship with Trump showed that their concerns about the president’s conduct were unnecessary.
“I don’t think that President Trump is going to ask me to do anything illegal or immoral,” Blanche said when asked how he would respond to an illegal order from the president.