Attorney General Todd Blanche says the DOJ may take states' voter roll fight to Supreme Court
Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday there’s a “possibility” that the Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to intervene in dozens of cases where judges have ruled against the federal government’s efforts to gain broad access to state voter rolls ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“Absolutely, it’s a possibility,” Blanche told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” when asked whether he’d appeal the 22 cases the Justice Department has lost so far to the Supreme Court.
“Election integrity is something that President Trump ran on, and the American people elected him. It’s something that every American should care about,” the attorney general added. “And so the idea that the Department of Justice is trying to investigate issues around elections to make sure they’re fair and make sure they’re conducted the right way is not something that we should be running away from. That’s something we should be running right towards.”
The cases stem from an executive order Trump signed asking states to turn over their voter rolls, including voters’ names, dates of birth, residential addresses, state driver’s licenses and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. The federal government has said it’s gathering the data to allow the Justice Department to investigate any “deficiencies” or “anomalies,” including whether any noncitizens are registered to vote.
While some states have voluntarily complied with the administration’s request for voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for refusing to comply.
Federal judges, like in Oregon and Michigan, have agreed with at least 22 states that have sought to block the federal government from gaining access to their voter rolls.
Elections have always been run by states, and the federal government does not typically keep track of voter rolls. Some of the states fighting the federal government in court are led by Republicans, including Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Georgia and Vermont.
Vermont’s GOP Gov. Phil Scott told “Meet the Press” last month that state leaders are better positioned to run elections than the federal government.
“We’re not going to stop doing what I think every American should expect us to do, which is make sure that we have elections that are fair,” Blanche said Sunday. “And as that relates to the Department of Justice, that means making sure that that there are no constitutional legal violations, even at the state level.”
The Senate voted earlier this month to confirm Blanche to his post after he spent several months as acting attorney general. The confirmation came after Blanche made a deal with key GOP senators — including Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas — who had concerns about the terms of a settlement the Justice Department made with the president in the wake of his lawsuit against the IRS.
One of Tillis and Cornyn’s main concerns was a so-called “anti-weaponization” fund, a nearly $2 billion fund that would have allowed people to collect money from the Justice Department if they felt it was weaponized against them.
On Sunday, Blanche repeated what he told Tillis and Cornyn before his confirmation, telling Welker, “I’ve said repeatedly: It’s dead.”
Blanche took over as acting attorney general after Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi in April. Before Trump returned to the White House for this term, Blanche served as his personal attorney in a New York City case where the president was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
In a speech Friday in Nassau County, New York, that Blanche attended, the president heaped praise on the new attorney general.
“He’s going to be the greatest, maybe ever,” Trump said. “We had some good ones in the country. … He’s got a shot at being the greatest ever, if he remains tough and strong.”
At his confirmation hearing, Senate Democrats raised concerns about Blanche’s personal relationship with Trump and whether he’d ever act in the president’s best interest over the nation’s.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed that concern Sunday when he appeared later on “Meet the Press.”
“You have a Justice Department under Todd Blanche, for instance, that’s become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump cartel and Donald Trump’s extreme agenda, as opposed to standing up for the rule of law,” Jeffries told Welker.
Blanche responded to Democrats’ concerns on Sunday, telling Welker: “I will act with integrity. Our prosecutors will act with integrity. We will prosecute without fear or any sort of favor, and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing, and that’s what every Department of Justice should do.”
“The president will never ask me to do something unethical or legal or illegal,” he added. “He never has. He never will.”
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