The President is in violation of the Constitution he swore to defend.
Executive Summary
The President of the United States failed to nominate Senate-confirmable U.S. Attorneys. He used procedural gimmicks to keep unconfirmed personal loyalists in those roles. Courts ruled his installations unlawful. Rather than comply, he directed political prosecutions through unlawfully serving officers, then fired a lawfully appointed replacement within hours of his swearing-in, citing the very constitutional provision that authorized the appointment. He is systematically dismantling separation of powers that prevent Trump becoming monarch and appointing his wife as his successor.
The Trump administration conduct is criminal on its face. The use of state machinery to punish political opponents through proceedings the government knew lacked legal authority, carried out by officers the government knew were unlawfully installed, under the direction of a Deputy Attorney General who spent nine years learning exactly how federal prosecution is supposed to work, then burned every bridge in his professional life to ensure it never works that way again.
Article II, Section 2
Congress may “by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper… in the Courts of Law.” Congress did that. 28 U.S.C. § 546(d) is that law.
It is the constitutional design working exactly as written.
When Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer, and Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche tweeted “Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, the president does. See Article II” he actually cited the provision that says judges can pick U.S. Attorneys when Congress authorizes it.
It’s like he’s saying Enron accountants don’t balance the books, their CEO does.
The second-highest official at the Department of Justice publicly misrepresented the Constitution he swore to uphold, on a public media platform, to fraudulently represent firing an officer who had been lawfully appointed under the very clause he was citing.
The Trump legal 3-part tragedy runs like this:
- A president has absolute authority to appoint U.S. Attorneys under Article II. But Trump didn’t appoint one here. He let the 120-day interim expire. He failed to get a nominee confirmed by the Senate. He didn’t do his job under the very article he’s invoking.
- An Attorney General can then use a congressional statute (the Vacancies Reform Act and § 546) to install a loyalist through a back door — naming former campaign attorney John Sarcone “first assistant” to keep him in place. Statutory authority is legitimate when it serves the president’s interests.
- However, when a federal judge uses the same statute’s next provision — § 546(d), the part that activates when the president’s 120 days expire — suddenly congressional authority over appointments is unconstitutional. The statute is valid in subsection (a) but void in subsection (d). The same law. The same page.
The position is that law applies to everyone except the president. It’s the monarch position, in direct violation of the Constitution and why America was founded.
The King’s attack already hit five districts
Look at the identical tragedy unfolding in New York, New Jersey, California, Virginia, and Nevada.
The president nominates a loyalist on an interim basis. The 120 days expire. Rather than submit to Senate confirmation — the process Article II actually requires for principal officers — the administration uses procedural maneuvers to keep unconfirmed people in place. When judges rule those hamfisted monarchist maneuvers unlawful, Trump either ignores the rulings or, as here, unlawfully fires the court’s lawful replacement within hours.
A systematic strategy to staff the federal prosecution apparatus without Senate confirmation. Similar to how Trump ran out the clock on appointments to the National Archives so he could inject someone who would destroy them. The one thing the Appointments Clause was specifically designed to prevent. The Framers included Senate confirmation because they had just fought a revolution against a king who appointed his own prosecutors, judges, and tax collectors.
Eastern District of Virginia alone makes the case
The unlawfully serving U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan brought criminal indictments against Letitia James and James Comey — known political enemies of the president. A judge threw those indictments out because Halligan had no authority to bring them. Halligan then brazenly continued using the title “United States Attorney” in court filings after being told she was not allowed. A federal judge warned she could face discipline for making false statements to the court.
This is what the unconfirmed prosecutors were for.
There’s nothing sophisticated here. It is plainly the political prosecution of Trump’s personal targets, carried out by people who serve at his pleasure because they were never subjected to Senate scrutiny as required by the Constitution. When judges tried to enforce the law, the administration spun disinformation attacks. They tried to say up is down, left is right, and the judiciary enforcing the Constitution to prevent abuse of power is an “abuse of power”. Obviously, without question, the president firing a court-appointed officer within hours is the abuse of power.
This Deputy Attorney General’s crimes appear intentional
Todd Blanche spent nine years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. He tried cases under the very appointment framework he’s now dismantling. He won the DOJ Director’s Award for superior performance as a federal prosecutor. He knows what § 546(d) says. He knows what a lawful appointment looks like. He knows what Article II authorizes. The misrepresentation on X was not ignorance.
It was a deliberate application of expertise in reverse, known well to historians of Nazi Germany, where the former prosecutor uses his knowledge of how the system works to prevent it from working.
Before becoming Deputy AG, Blanche was the president’s personal criminal defense attorney in three separate criminal cases — including the one that produced 34 felony convictions. He represented Paul Manafort, convicted of fraud and conspiracy. He represented Igor Fruman, a Giuliani associate who pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes. He founded a solo law firm for the sole purpose of representing Trump after Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft pushed him out for taking the client. He moved his family to Palm Beach County near Mar-a-Lago. He switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican.
He switched his entire professional life to serving one man’s legal survival against the Constitution, and his reward was the second-highest law enforcement position in the country to destroy the Constitution.
The leader’s private lawyer now oversees every federal prosecution in the republic. In healthier systems, such an appointment would not be possible.
Blanche record in office
- He personally conducted a two-day proffer interview with Ghislaine Maxwell — a convicted child sex trafficker — at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tallahassee. A Deputy Attorney General has no business running a proffer session; that is line prosecutor work. Unless the purpose is controlling which questions get asked and which answers get recorded. The transcripts confirm the priority: Maxwell told Blanche the president “was never inappropriate with anybody… he was a gentleman in all respects.” She was subsequently transferred to a minimum-security facility.
- He refused to open a civil rights investigation into the ICE killing of Renée Good — a mother shot in the head by a federal agent — despite video evidence that 82% of Americans said showed unjustified force, and despite a dozen federal prosecutors in Minneapolis and Washington resigning in protest. He announced the decision on television before the FBI investigation was complete. He then called Governor Walz and Mayor Frey “terrorists” on X and confirmed investigations into them instead — the elected officials who called for peaceful protest, not the agent who fired into a car that was turning away from him.
- He was simultaneously installed as acting Librarian of Congress — a legislative branch position — after Trump fired Carla Hayden two years before her term ended. Library staff refused to recognize his authority. DOJ officials reportedly attempted to assume physical control of the building and were turned away.
Every action follows the same criminal logic. Shield Trump from legal exposure for his crimes. Punish anyone trying to hold him accountable. Extend Trump’s control into institutions where he has no authority. The client list didn’t change when Blanche moved from defense attorney to Deputy Attorney General. The billing arrangement did.
Blanche announced the firing of a court-appointed U.S. Attorney using the known Trump meme on a social media platform: “You are fired, Donald Kinsella.” He incorrectly cited a constitutional provision, which he knows opposes him and Trump. He appears confident that his audience won’t know he just said the opposite of the truth, intentional disinformation. This is the manner in which legal authority is exercised when its legitimacy is no longer the point.
The sequence deserves clinical attention: the leader’s personal attorney becomes the state’s chief prosecutor. Investigations migrate away from the leader and toward his political opponents. Courts intervene. The regime fires the court’s appointees and calls judicial review an abuse of power. The prosecutorial function has not been eliminated. It has been reversed. It now protects its patron and punishes his critics, and the man operating it got the job by keeping his client out of prison.
Criminal exposure: specific and documented
18 U.S.C. § 242 — deprivation of rights under color of law. Letitia James and James Comey were subjected to the coercive power of federal prosecution by an officer a court ruled had no authority to wield it. The administration was informed of that ruling and continued anyway. The willfulness element — usually the hard part — is handed to you by the court orders. They knew. They kept going.
18 U.S.C. § 1505 — obstruction of proceedings. The Renée Good civil rights investigation was killed before it could begin, over the objection of career prosecutors, announced on television before the FBI had completed its work. The use of positional authority to prevent a lawful federal proceeding from occurring.
18 U.S.C. § 371 — conspiracy to defraud the United States. Five districts, same pattern, same result. Install unlawfully serving prosecutors, maintain them after court orders, use them to bring political prosecutions. A scheme to impair the lawful function of the Department of Justice. Blanche sits at the top of that scheme as the official who oversees all 93 U.S. Attorney’s offices.
The logic is disbarment
Blanche is a member of the New York bar. Rule 8.4(c) prohibits conduct involving dishonesty or misrepresentation — his public statement that Article II gives the president sole appointment authority, when he knows Article II explicitly authorizes court appointments, is a material misrepresentation of law made in his official capacity to justify an official act. Rule 8.4(d) covers conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice — personally conducting a proffer session with a convicted sex trafficker to elicit statements exonerating his former client, while that former client controls her clemency prospects, is the corruption of a prosecutorial function. Rule 1.7 covers conflicts of interest — his former client is the president, his current role requires oversight of investigations implicating the president, and the Maxwell interview proved he cannot separate the two.
Every piece of it is on the public record because he announced it himself on X.
The problem was never the evidence. The problem is the defendant controls the courthouse.