The Leadership Conference Condemns Senate Confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General
A PDF copy of this statement can be found here.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, released the following statement after the Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States:
“Today, the Senate handed the Justice Department to a man who does not believe it belongs to the American people, and he spent two years proving it. Congress built that Department in 1870 to secure the rights of newly freed people, and neither that mission nor the Civil Rights Division survives a leader who treats the law as a tool for protecting one man and punishing his critics. A majority of the Senate decided it could live with that.
Blanche’s record is clear. Just some of his abuses include firing Erez Reuveni, the career lawyer who told a federal judge the truth about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, knowing full well the personal consequences he may face. Blanche turned the Department’s investigative power against civil rights organizations and the people who shine a light on extremism and hate crimes, which have claimed too many of our family members, friends, and neighbors. Blanche signed a memo trying to permanently bar the government from pursuing claims against the president and his family, shielding them, yet refusing everyday people justice. He is still finding ways to give taxpayer money to people who attacked this country. He has stated his intention to end all access to reproductive healthcare and to interfere with state law. He left survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, like Dani Bensky, waiting for answers he never intended to give, while failing to prosecute claims or take responsibility for re-traumatizing them with incompetent and unlawful disclosures of their personal information and images.
The warnings came from people with no partisan stake in the outcome: a large and diverse coalition of non-partisan, non-profit organizations, more than 1,200 former Justice Department employees, the New York City Bar Association, 101 former judges, and Epstein survivors who described what his misconduct cost them.
Todd Blanche is a man wholly undeserving and unfit to serve as the Attorney General of the United States.
And still, the senators who cast the deciding votes to confirm Blanche decided to accept his empty promises rather than stand up for equal justice on behalf of their constituents. Doubt expressed in a hallway and abandoned on the floor is not oversight. It’s a performance.
The Department Blanche now runs is supposed to ensure every voter can cast a ballot for leaders who are accountable to us, makes sure we all have equal opportunity at work and school, or could decide whether armed federal immigration agents can harass voters at polling places. Millions of Americans depend on the Justice Department carrying out its mission, and we will carry the consequences when the individual who leads it acts as the president’s personal lawyer instead of the people’s attorney.
A confirmation does not end our fight to protect our communities. Congress retains the power to conduct oversight, to control appropriations, and to raise questions about an officer who abuses public trust. We will be urging them to use that power. We will watch and document what this Attorney General does with that authority and be ready to continue to fight for our civil rights and equal justice under the law.”
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