President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Todd Blanche, an attorney who led the legal team that defended the Republican at his hush money criminal trial, to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official. A former federal prosecutor, Blanche has been a key figure on Trump’s defense team both in the New York case that ended in a conviction in May, and the federal cases brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. “Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long,” Trump said in a statement Thursday announcing his pick. If confirmed as deputy attorney general by the Republican-led Senate, Blanche would manage the day-to-day operations of the sprawling Justice Department, which Trump has vowed to radically overhaul. The announcement comes a day after the president-elect said he had chosen as attorney general Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump loyalist who once faced a Justice Department investigation that ended in no charges. Trump is appointing two other members of his defense team to high-ranking Justice Department positions. Emil Bove, an ex-federal prosecutor, will be the principal associate deputy attorney general and will serve as acting deputy attorney general until Blanche is confirmed, Trump said. Trump tabbed D. John Sauer, who successfully argued his presidential immunity case before the U.S. Supreme Court, to be the solicitor general, representing his administration before the high court. Sauer, who was previously Missouri’s solicitor general, was a Rhodes scholar and served as a Supreme Court clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Blanche represented Trump in both the 2020 election interference case in Washington and the Florida case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. In both cases, the defense team successfully mounted a legal strategy focused heavily on delaying the cases until after the election. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last summer threw out the classified documents case, finding that Smith’s appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland was illegal. The 2020 election case was stalled amid wrangling over Trump’s claims of immunity from prosecution that went up to the Supreme Court. The Justice Department is now evaluating how to wind down the two prosecutions to comply with longstanding department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office. Blanche has also represented Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and succeeded in getting a mortgage fraud case against him dismissed in the same New York court where Trump was convicted. Blanche argued that case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, was too similar to one that landed Manafort in federal prison and therefore amounted to double jeopardy. Blanche joined Trump’s defense team just prior to his April 2023 arraignment in the New York case. Trump was accused in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts, though his attorneys are urging the judge to overturn the guilty verdict. Blanche left the firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice, to form his own practice. Blanche told colleagues at Cadwalader that he was resigning to represent Trump. He’d joined the firm in September […]