President Donald Trump's second-in-command at the Justice Department, Todd Blanche, had to intervene behind the scenes to stop one of Trump's most zealous attack dogs from seeking revenge on behalf of far-right InfoWars webcaster and conspiracy theorist king Alex Jones, according to a new report by The New York Times.
The controversy stemmed from Ed Martin, Trump's former acting U.S. attorney in charge of Washington, D.C., who was moved aside into a different job at the Justice Department after his partisan antics turned a number of Senate Republicans off from confirming him for the role permanently.
In September, Martin raised eyebrows by sending a threatening letter to a former FBI agent who testified against Jones in his civil lawsuits for orchestrating a harassment campaign against the families of children murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. Jones repeatedly told his audience with no evidence that this mass shooting was staged by the government with child actors, and turned his fans loose on bereaved parents, causing hundreds of millions in legal judgments that may ultimately lead to his site's liquidation.
Just one day after Martin's letter, however, the Justice Department retracted it — and according to The Times' report, that was a result of Blanche stepping in.
"A ticked-off Mr. Blanche asked Mr. Martin: Why pick a pointless fight that would embarrass the administration on behalf of a fringe activist? He demanded that Mr. Martin rescind the letter, according to three people briefed on a phone call between the two men," reported Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer. "Mr. Martin, who had used his brief tenure as the top federal prosecutor in Washington to purge government lawyers who charged Jan. 6 rioters, complied."
While Blanche has largely worked to execute Trump's will, this is not the only time he put his foot down on MAGA operatives' most egregious ideas.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Blanche also stopped a convoluted plan to get a notorious Colorado election conspiracy theorist transferred from state prison to a low-security federal facility, through false claims she was needed as a witness in a federal case. This has triggered a revolt of some MAGA activists against Blanche, with some calling him a traitor and demanding his removal from the DOJ.
