Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the Justice Department could open investigations into statements made by Democratic members of Congress, including those on the House Oversight Committee, following President Trump’s directive that the DOJ “look into” what he called a “criminal act.”
Blanche made the remarks during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Dana Bash. Asked directly whether he would follow Trump’s order to investigate Democratic members of Congress and what criminal act the president was referring to, Blanche pointed to what he described as threats made by lawmakers against conservatives, Republicans, donors, and young people considering work in conservative institutions or the Trump administration.
“Well, what we have seen over the past several days and even over the past several weeks are outright threats, many — many by elected members of Congress and some senators against anybody that’s conservative and anybody that happens to be a Republican,” Blanche said. “They have threatened donors. They have threatened individuals who are in college and might want to work for conservative institutions or for a conservative government or for President Trump.”
Bash pressed Blanche on whether his concern was really about Democrats exercising their constitutionally defined oversight role, rather than rhetoric. Blanche rejected that framing.
“They have a very unique role in oversight. I agree,” Blanche said. “Have you been listening to the rhetoric the past couple days? You honestly think that all they’re doing is talking about their oversight obligations when they’re talking about going after basically every member of the Cabinet, they’re talking about impeachments, they’re talking about going after companies, private companies who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple of years? That is not oversight. I welcome oversight. Oversight is exactly something they should be doing.”
When Bash asked directly whether Blanche was saying he would investigate Democratic lawmakers and whether a crime had occurred, Blanche said it would depend on the specific statements made.
“It depends on what’s said. So, yes, there could be,” Blanche said. “You have free speech in this country. You are allowed to be critical of President Trump, of me, of this administration. But when the threats become so vile and so dangerous that you are telling people in college that they better be careful if they want to work in the Trump administration because somebody will come after them, at some point, you have to draw the line.”
Blanche added that he was not suggesting every case would lead to prosecution, but said he was troubled by reports of a sitting U.S. senator warning college students that going to work for President Trump could subject them to investigations and legal scrutiny. He also referenced an incoming committee chairman who he said had told people to “lawyer up.”
“If that doesn’t bother you, if that doesn’t bother your viewers, then we really need to kind of wake up in this country, because it certainly bothers me,” Blanche said.
Blanche’s comments followed Trump’s statement, quoted by Bash during the interview, that he was “ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act.” The exchange has drawn attention to how the incoming 120th Congress, where Democrats are expected to pursue oversight investigations and, in some cases, discussion of impeachment, may clash with the Trump administration over the scope of congressional authority versus potential criminal conduct.
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