Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the Justice Department could open investigations into statements made by Democratic members of Congress, including those on the House Oversight Committee, following President Trump’s call for the department to “look into” what he described as a “criminal act.”
Blanche made the comments during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with host Dana Bash. Asked directly whether he would follow Trump’s order to investigate Democratic members of Congress and what criminal act the president was referring to, Blanche pointed to rhetoric from lawmakers rather than a specific statute or charge.
“What we have seen over the past several days and even over the past several weeks are outright threats, many by elected members of Congress and some senators against anybody that’s conservative and anybody that happens to be a Republican,” Blanche said. “They have threatened donors. They have threatened individuals who are in college and might want to work for conservative institutions or for a conservative government or for President Trump.”
Bash pressed Blanche on whether the comments he was describing amounted to lawmakers exercising their constitutionally prescribed oversight role. Blanche disputed that characterization.
“You honestly think that all they’re doing is talking about their oversight obligations when they’re talking about going after basically every member of the Cabinet, they’re talking about impeachments, they’re talking about going after companies, private companies who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple of years? That is not oversight,” Blanche said. “I welcome oversight. Oversight is exactly something they should be doing.”
When Bash asked whether Blanche was saying he would investigate Democratic lawmakers, and whether a crime had actually occurred, Blanche said it would depend on the specifics of what was said.
“It depends on what’s said. So, yes, there could be,” Blanche said. “You have free speech in this country. You are allowed to be critical of President Trump, of me, of this administration. But when the threats become so vile and so dangerous that you are telling people in college that they better be careful if they want to work in the Trump administration because somebody will come after them, at some point, you have to draw the line.”
Blanche added that he was not suggesting every case would lead to prosecution, but said he considered it a serious problem if, as he put it, “a young person in college is getting threatened by a United States senator” over a decision to work in the Trump administration. He also referenced an unnamed incoming committee chairman he said had told people to “lawyer up” before taking office.
Blanche did not name the senators or lawmakers he was referring to, and the segment did not identify a specific statute or criminal statute under which such statements might be investigated or prosecuted.
