When Todd Blanche began his first press conference as acting attorney general, he had a unique opportunity to show there are steady hands at the wheel at the Justice Department, overseeing federal law enforcement amid widespread turmoil.

In recent months, Americans have seen Donald Trump’s DOJ make awful mistakes, some devastating and some amateurish. The White House has usurped control and has set the department’s credibility on fire. The DOJ is acting like Trump’s personal law firm, as key personnel have been redirected from core responsibilities to pursue the president’s pet endeavors. It’s been weaponized to an almost cartoonish degree and is losing key cases. Once-rare mass resignations are becoming far more common, contributing to serious staffing challenges and “crisis” conditions in prosecutorial offices.

With this in mind, it fell to Blanche to act like a serious adult and make clear that in the wake of former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s humiliating failures, the public can have confidence in Main Justice.

What Trump’s former defense lawyer did instead was show how little has changed.

Over the course of his press conference, Blanche struggled to explain why Bondi was fired. He offered support for the Pentagon as the administration weighed possible war crimes in Iran. He expressed relative indifference to allegations surrounding former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. He accused journalists of turning a blind eye to Biden-era “weaponization” that never actually happened.

But most of all, Blanche tried — and failed — to justify Trump’s control over the Justice Department.

“President Trump has made no secret of the fact that he wants to see his perceived political enemies prosecuted,” a reporter said. “So now that you’re in this position, how are you going to balance that relentless pressure with this administration’s promise to end the weaponization of this department?”

The acting attorney general made no real effort to contest the premise. “We have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now,” Blanche replied. “And it is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with and believes should be investigated. That is his right, and indeed it is his duty to do that, meaning to lead this country.”

As a Reuters report summarized, Blanche argued that Trump ‌has “a right and duty to shape federal probes of individuals who investigated him.”

So, as the acting AG sees it, Trump feels obligated to direct federal law enforcement to go after his perceived political enemies, which Blanche sees as entirely appropriate. That endorsement only reinforces concerns about the degree to which the DOJ has been weaponized.

Blanche went on to explain that he believes it’s his job to “execute the president’s agenda and priorities,” he rejected the idea of a post-Watergate “firewall” between the White House and criminal investigations, and he hoped White House officials would make criminal referrals to the DOJ.

As for his professional future, Blache added, “If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting [attorney general], that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the [deputy attorney general], that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’”

Anyone looking for a reason to take confidence in the post-Bondi DOJ was left wanting.

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