During President Donald Trump’s first term, he bemoaned the failure of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to protect him from the Justice Department’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to elect Trump in 2016.

“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump erupted, referring to his notorious former fixer who had also been Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man during the 1950s Senate hearings into communist activity. Trump later fired Sessions.

For a time, Attorney General William Barr was the answer. But the two men parted ways after Barr told him repeatedly that no evidence supported Trump’s obsessive claims that voter fraud had cost him the 2020 election.

In Trump’s second term, it appeared that Pam Bondi fit the bill. She tried valiantly to meet Trump’s every legal need. She transformed the Justice Department into Trump’s personal tool, prosecuted Trump’s perceived enemies, and tried to protect Trump from the fallout over the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors.

Bondi's Deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.

But she bungled the Epstein files. She tried but failed to prosecute two key targets on Trump’s vengeance list: New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. She savaged her own reputation but could not save her job.

Bondi’s deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.

From Democrat to Trump Enabler

Blanche began his legal career in 1999 as a paralegal in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Working days and attending Brooklyn Law School at night, he graduated in 2003. After a stint as an associate in the Davis Polk firm and two federal court clerkships, he returned in 2006 to the US Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor and eventually became co-chief of the violent crimes division.

In 2014, Blanche joined the WilmerHale firm as a partner before moving to another big New York firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft. In 2019, he represented Paul Manafort on state mortgage fraud charges similar to federal crimes for which Manafort had already been convicted in 2018. (Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020). Blanche got the state law claims dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.

But in April 2023, Cadwalader balked when Blanche, then a registered Democrat, sought to represent Trump in the hush-money case involving payments to Stormy Daniels. So Blanche left Cadwalader and started his own firm. The jury eventually convicted Trump, but for Blanche it began a profitable relationship that generated over $3 million from Trump’s Save America PAC in the new firm’s first year alone.

Blanche went on to represent Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and in the election obstruction case involving Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. In 2024, Blanche switched his registration from Democrat to Republican.

Trump’s Latest Roy Cohn

Blanche is no longer Trump’s personal attorney, but you wouldn’t know it from his conduct in office.

Although he was the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, in July 2025 he tried to........

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