Attorney General Todd Blanche complained that the wave of prosecutors who left the Justice Department "hate us" and have banded together against the department in opposition to President Donald Trump's leadership.
Blanche, who the Senate confirmed as attorney General in August, made the remarks in an interview on the Ruthless podcast posted Wednesday.
During the interview, Ruthless co-host Josh Holmes asked Blanche to name the biggest challenge of his time in the job. Blanche said most of the department's prosecutors and agents are "great," but that changing the "perception of the culture" has been his hardest task.
"So the prosecutors that left over the past year and a half, they hate us," Blanche said.
"They basically unionized. And so it's formed an organization whose sole mission is to go after the current Department of Justice. So pushing back on that perception is a constant challenge," he continued, without naming the group.
More than 5,000 employees resigned, retired or were fired from the Justice Department during Trump's first year back in office, CBS News reported in February.
In Minnesota, 14 attorneys left the U.S. Attorney's Office in a single month, including six veteran prosecutors who resigned over Justice Department directives tied to an immigration crackdown, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported earlier that month.
Blanche insisted the prosecutors who remain "love their jobs," telling Holmes he visits U.S. attorneys' offices several times a month.
"But the perception on LinkedIn and on Instagram or the newspaper, New York Times, is, 'Oh my God, DOJ is just in a bad place,' which it's not," he said.
"I was trying to think of a good word in the English language that wasn't quite so direct, but it's a lie to the American people about the Department of Justice under the last administration: that they weren't coordinating directly with the White House," Blanche said earlier in the interview.
"But you also saw it recently in the investigation of President Trump, where for years the Department of Justice and Jack Smith had said there was no coordination with the White House," he said, referring to the former special counsel.
"And by the way, I'm not being critical of the coordination, as everybody knows," Blanche added.
"And so that's where I do think transparency works going forward, where when President Trump thinks there's something that needs to get fixed, guess what? He tells me, but he also puts it on Truth," he said, referring to Trump's Truth Social platform.
"So there… you know, there's no more deception there," Blanche continued.
"I love my job. I mean, this is a dream job. I went to night law school. OK? I represented a guy who actually got convicted, and then turned out he won the presidency, and I'm now the attorney general of United States. All right?" Blanche said when Holmes asked about the most rewarding part of the role.
"But I also… I love President Trump," he added.