Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed attorney general, refused to say on Sunday that he would always act independently of White House control but claimed during an interview that President Trump has “never” demanded he prosecute specific people.
Mr. Blanche, displaying a greater ease in fielding a variety of pointed questions than his predecessor, Pam Bondi, sought to balance his loyalty to the president and a commitment to the evenhanded administration of justice during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“There’s a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case, and act independently of the White House,” Mr. Blanche said when pressed to pledge his independence by the show’s host, Kristen Welker.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he said.
Mr. Blanche said Mr. Trump had never asked him to do anything illegal or unethical — and claimed that reports of White House meddling in the department were overhyped.
“There is this extraordinarily false narrative that the president wakes up in the morning and calls me and says, ‘Todd, go prosecute X or Y,’” Mr. Blanche said. “He does not do that. He has never done that. He will never do that.”
In September, Mr. Trump demanded the immediate prosecution of several adversaries in a social media post aimed at Ms. Bondi. He fired Ms. Bondi in April, in part because he thought she was moving too slowly in prosecuting his perceived enemies whom he had identified, with scant or nonexistent evidence, as being criminals.
Mr. Blanche, then her deputy, was elevated to fill the post and was narrowly confirmed by the Senate earlier this month. His confirmation was imperiled by the opposition of some Republicans who questioned his role in a $1.8 billion compensation fund for purported victims of abuses by the Biden-era Justice Department and a deal granting Mr. Trump sweeping immunity from tax investigations.
After weeks of wrangling, Mr. Blanche secured the support of several holdouts by putting on paper a commitment to rescinding his previous order creating the fund and limiting the scope of the tax immunity agreement.
On Sunday, he repeated his claim that the fund was dead but said that those who felt they had been wronged — including Capitol rioters convicted of crimes and pardoned by Mr. Trump — could still apply for compensation through the courts.
On Friday, Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who served as Mr. Trump’s lead criminal defense lawyer, appeared alongside the president at an event in Long Island with Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive running for governor of New York.
“In my Department of Justice, if anybody touches a federal law enforcement officer in any way inappropriate, we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Blanche said at the event.
When Ms. Welker asked him to square that statement with Mr. Trump’s mass clemency to the rioters on the first day of his second term, Mr. Blanche offered the same answer he gave during his confirmation hearing: Presidents have the constitutional right to pardon anyone they want.
He also expressed support for Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington who has drawn Mr. Trump’s wrath over her dropping of charges against a man accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and blaming a “botched” renovation.
Mr. Blanche’s public support was a significant endorsement for Ms. Pirro, a longtime friend and ally of Mr. Trump, who has recently become a target.
“I absolutely support U.S. Attorney Pirro, as does President Trump,” he said — even though Mr. Trump has considered firing her and raged against her decision.
“Now, that’s different than whether the president is extraordinarily frustrated at what happened in that case, and I don’t in any way fault him for that,” added Mr. Blanche, who suggested the department was still investigating vandalism in and around the pool.
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