{"id":1294,"date":"2026-07-13T22:46:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1294"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:46:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:46:01","slug":"todd-blanches-war-against-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1294","title":{"rendered":"Todd Blanche\u2019s War Against Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an edition of The<\/i> Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i><\/small>Sign up for it here.<\/small><\/i><\/p>\n

Read more How Lindsey Graham Persuaded Trump to Attack Iran<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Todd Blanche will head to Capitol Hill for hearings on his nomination to be U.S. attorney general. Usually these hearings are a chance for senators to get a sense of how a nominee would approach the job, but Blanche has already had a 100-day tryout as acting attorney general, which removes some of the suspense.<\/p>\n

Although not all <\/i>of the suspense. If Blanche loses a single vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee would deadlock and sink his nomination. Senator Lindsey Graham\u2019s death leaves an opening on the committee, and who will fill it is not yet known, although it\u2019s likely they would vote in favor of Blanche. The vote that will receive the most attention is that of Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who has emerged as a notable critic of Donald Trump since announcing his retirement.<\/p>\n

Tillis\u2019s actions have not always been as bold as his rhetoric. He said last month that \u201cthe key for Todd, or anybody going through Judiciary Committee, is being pretty tight on January 6.\u201d One might imagine that Blanche\u2019s involvement in Trump\u2019s $1.8 billion fund for political allies, including January 6ers, would be an issue, but Tillis apparently does not. A federal judge today issued a scathing finding that the lawsuit that produced the settlement was improper, because Trump was effectively negotiating against himself. , which singles out Blanche, should be good fodder for this week\u2019s hearings.<\/p>\n

If Blanche clears the committee, he will also have to get a majority of the full Senate, where he has only a little more margin for error. South Carolina\u2019s governor today said that he would name Graham\u2019s sister to fill the seat, but until she is sworn in, and as long as Mitch McConnell is indefinitely out of commission, the GOP has just a 51\u201347 edge in the chamber.<\/p>\n

For most Republican senators, this will be a straightforward yea<\/i>: The president\u2019s a Republican; Blanche is his nominee, and so they\u2019ll vote for him. During his time as acting attorney general, Blanche has demonstrated the same blind loyalty: If Trump, who previously retained him as a personal attorney, tells him to do something, he does it. The past few days have shown why that\u2019s a dangerous disposition for an attorney general\u2014and especially perilous to free speech and a free press. Any GOP member open to considering Blanche\u2019s nominations on its merits should pay close attention.<\/p>\n

Last week, Trump returned home from a summit in Turkey not on his flashy new airborne conflict of interest but on one of the older planes that also serve as Air Force One. The<\/i> New York Times <\/i>reported that this was because the new plane, given by Qatar, lacks the same \u201cdefensive countermeasures\u201d of the older plane, including \u201cadvanced antimissile capabilities.\u201d Over the weekend, the Times <\/i>revealed that Blanche\u2019s Justice Department had issued subpoenas to four of the paper\u2019s reporters, dispatching federal agents to some of their homes. The administration wants to compel them to testify about how they learned of the security vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

This is only the latest in a string of attempts to squeeze reporters. In January, when Blanche was deputy attorney general, the FBI raided the home of a Washington Post <\/i>reporter, searching for evidence in an investigation into a contractor suspected of leaking. Two judges have ruled that the government cannot search the data and criticized its approach. In May, the department subpoenaed the records of Wall Street Journal <\/i>reporters, trying to find the source of leaks about the planning of Trump\u2019s war in Iran, and another Post <\/i>reporter who had written about the takeover of Venezuela. In June, DOJ withdrew the subpoenas. (FBI Director Kash Patel has also sued The Atlantic <\/i>and my colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick over her reporting on his leadership at the bureau, and reportedly opened a criminal investigation into her.)<\/p>\n

These are classic cases of attacking, or at least threatening to imprison, the messenger. A Justice Department spokesperson said that \u201creporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are,\u201d but in practice this is a meaningless distinction. If reporters give up their sources, they will violate agreements they made, which will make it harder for them to obtain information relevant to the public in the future, but if they refuse, they could be fined or sent to jail.<\/p>\n

Read more Winners of the International Aerial Photographer of the Year<\/a><\/p>\n

The driving force behind these subpoenas is Trump. CNN reported in May that the president wrote Treason<\/span> in Sharpie on a note to Blanche with a stack of articles about the Iran war. Soon thereafter, DOJ issued the subpoenas. The Times <\/i>also reported that a livid Trump summoned Patel to the White House to oversee an investigation into how the information about Air Force One had leaked, leading to the latest subpoenas. In the past, top Justice Department officials have resigned or threatened to resign over political pressure from the White House\u2014including cases far less direct than the president instructing the attorney general to subpoena reporters over stories that made him look bad. But Blanche hasn\u2019t just complied; he\u2019s been happy to publicly defend these moves.<\/p>\n

After the WSJ<\/i> subpoenas became public, Blanche posted on X that \u201cprosecuting leakers who share our nation\u2019s secrets with reporters, in turn risking our national security and the lives of our soldiers, is a priority for this administration.\u201d The idea that internal dissent over the war represents a threat to soldiers is difficult to take seriously. Even harder to believe was a comment that Blanche made to journalists last month. \u201cWe very much value and appreciate the role that reporters play,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a similar important role to make sure that people who are entrusted with our nation\u2019s secrets do what they\u2019re supposed to do with that information which, spoiler alert, means not sharing it with reporters.\u201d The administration\u2019s approach suggests that it is more concerned about embarrassment than security concerns, and more concerned with the optics of the leaks than the substance.<\/p>\n

Balancing national-security concerns with press freedom always presents difficult trade-offs, but faced with a choice between disappointing the political aims of the president he serves and stifling the free press, Blanche has shown that he won\u2019t hesitate to choose the latter. My colleagues Jonathan Chait and Quinta Jurecic have outlined some of the reasons that the nomination is troubling, but this week, Blanche\u2019s actions are making the case just as clearly.<\/p>\n

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