Attorney General Todd Blanche made a number of controversial statements Sunday during an appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” but one “telling” remark appeared to fly completely under the radar, one that Zeteo’s Martin Pengelly flagged as a major “Freudian slip.”
During his interview with NBC News' Kristen Welker, Blanche refused to pledge he'd act independently of the White House and declined to rule out payments to Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. But it was when Welker pressed him on whether he'd defy President Donald Trump if asked to do something that "crosses an ethical or legal line" that Blanche let slip what Pengelly characterized as an unintentional admission.
“The president will never ask me to do something unethical or legal – or illegal,” Blanche said. “He never has. He never will.”
Blanche’s claim, however, flies in the face of several legal experts who say that within a week of his confirmation, the newly confirmed attorney general already committed an illegal act by stumping for an ally of President Donald Trump’s in New York last Friday, which former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance argued was a blatant violation of the Hatch Act, a 1938 federal law that prohibits federal officials from engaging in political activities while on duty.
Pengelly argued that Blanche’s “telling Freudian slip” went largely unnoticed due to the “staggering corruption” of the Trump administration flooding the news cycle, most notably the Trump family’s success in receiving preliminary approval to open their own bank.
“And so, in turn, will come some new story of appalling, apparently unstoppable corruption,” Pengelly wrote in an analysis published Monday in Zeteo. “Inevitably, the attorney general’s latest appallingly cynical display of slavish devotion to his corrupt boss will be old news in its turn.”
