Attorney General Todd Blanche poses a "huge threat" as he's poised to wield the Justice Department against abortion rights, a Guardian columnist warned.
In a Saturday opinion piece, legal columnist Moira Donegan flagged how the newly confirmed attorney general is positioned to complete the transformation of the DOJ into an instrument restricting access to mifepristone nationwide. In the piece, titled "Trump’s new attorney general poses a huge threat to abortion rights," she described Blanche as "an anti-abortion zealot" who has been "shockingly subservient" to Trump.
Blanche "seems poised to complete the president's long-brewing transformation of the country's chief law enforcement agency into a vehicle for score settling, personal vendettas, distributing favors to the administration's friends and suppressing dissent from its political enemies," Donegan wrote.
What Donegan finds "most incendiary" centers on what Blanche has said he intends to do with the office. In a call put together by the White House faith office days before his confirmation, Blanche reportedly told the religious group Intercessors for America that the department was working "so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state," according to Donegan.
"We don't have complete victory yet," Blanche said. "But we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and it will be permanent."
Donegan laid out several paths Blanche has at his disposal, none of which require new legislation. He could revive the Comstock Act, a dormant 1873 statute, to ban the mailing of abortion pills, Donegan warned.
He could sue to strike down the shield laws that let doctors in Democratic states ship medication to patients in states with bans. He could also reverse the DOJ's current position defending the drug's online availability, which Donegan noted is a stance that will be tested when the Fifth Circuit hears a Louisiana challenge next month.
According to Donegan, Trump has moved cautiously on the issue of abortion rights since returning to office. "He appears to have been spooked by the political reaction to Dobbs, which was credited for the Democrats' better-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterms," Donegan wrote.