Attorney General Todd Blanche is open to blocking states from certifying the November midterm elections.
Blanche made the comments during a Thursday press gaggle in Virginia.
“Is there any scenario in which DOJ would weigh in on that certification process or try to block states from certifying?” a reporter asked.
“Is there any scenario? Yes,” Blanche said. “Of course there’s scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, some doomsday scenario for example, right? I don’t think it’s proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what’s gonna happen in the future.... It is not DOJ’s intention to—and it’s never our intention—to improperly interfere with our elections.”
“But to say that there’s no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course I’m not gonna say that,” he continued.
The federal government is not supposed to play a role in state certification of elections. The soundbite quickly raised alarm to Blanche’s left.
“THIS IS CODE RED !!” wrote California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office. “Trump’s politicized DOJ is now saying out loud that they may interfere in the election in a desperate, unprecedented, and completely unAmerican and anti-democratic attempt to keep Trump and MAGA in power.”
“He answered the question of whether Donald Trump’s DOJ may interfere in the midterm elections with a ‘Yes,’” said Campaign for New York Health’s Melanie D’Arrigo.
It is incredibly abnormal for a sitting attorney general to float the possibility of interfering with an election, especially one who believes the Justice Department is not independent from the president (in this case, a president who has spent six years trying to manufacture a baseless voter fraud scandal). Yet Blanche, Trump’s formal personal attorney, did it with ease.