Elie Honig Does 180 on Ex-‘Friend and Colleague’ Blanche
CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig revealed Monday how his feelings toward former “friend and colleague” Todd Blanchenow President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general, had “completely turned around” as he called out his past associate for having “let go” of his “core values.”
Blanche, who took over the role of attorney general from Pam Bondi in temporary capacity in April, is scheduled to sit before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 15 for a confirmation hearing.
Honig appeared on CNN ahead of the hearing on Monday when host John Berman noted that he had worked with Blanche before, when the network analyst served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and asked him how his views of Trump’s nominee had “evolved over time.”
“Well, John, I’ve known Todd Blanche for 20-some years. You’re right, since we worked together at the Southern District of New York,” he began. “My views on him have evolved 180 degrees, completely turned around.”
He continued: “I was a friend and colleague of Todd Blanche’s, I believed in him and supported him. I supported him publicly when he was under attack for defending Donald Trump in the criminal cases. However, in the year and a half since he’s been the deputy AG and now the acting AG, I think Todd has let go of many of the core values that we were taught at DOJ.”
Honig then accused Blanche of having “presided over the weaponization and politicization of DOJ” under the current administration and said he expected this to be a primary line of questioning during the hearing.
“He also has mishandled various issues that have come before him, from his mishandling of the [Jeffrey] Epstein files to his creation of that $1.776 billion slush fund,” the analyst followed. “So Todd Blanche is going to have some very difficult questions to answer on Wednesday.”
“It remains very much an open question whether he gets through that Senate Judiciary Committee or not,” he said.
Berman then pressed Honig on what questions he would ask Blanche if he were sitting on the committee for the hearing, to which the analyst replied he would seek “specific answers” about the “aforementioned specific missteps.”
He detailed: “The slush fund, the Epstein matter, his face-to-face interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. But I think John, the biggest overarching question is how do you view the Justice Department with respect to the president? Should the Justice Department, in its exercise of prosecutorial powers, be independent of the president, or should it take orders from the president? And I don’t know how Todd Blanche will answer that question, because he has answered it in squarely contradictory ways when he’s been asked that question in various media interviews.”
“At times, he says, correctly, that ‘DOJ has a long tradition of independence, and I will uphold that tradition,’ but at other times he says, ‘No, we are there to serve the president. And if the president tells us to go after somebody, it’s a good thing if we do that,’” he added.
“So he needs to be pinned down on what his view is on that core issue,” Honig concluded.
Watch above via CNN.
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DOCUMENTED REFERENCES
Exploring Documented Records
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For readers looking to review primary-source style data rather than interpretations, exploring compiled records can provide additional context to the broader discussion.
