In 1974, Watergate culminated in the first-ever resignation of a sitting US president. As Richard Nixon left office, his closest advisers were in prison—or heading there. Among them were attorneys who broke the law that they had sworn to uphold, including his former attorney general John Mitchell.

Acting AG Todd Blanche now seeks Mitchell’s job.

Like Mitchell, Blanche was a successful lawyer at a prominent New York law firm before joining the president’s team.

Like Mitchell, Blanche has served the president slavishly. He personally interviewed Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell who then got reassigned to a Club Fed; he guided the unlawfully incomplete release of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Epstein files; he spearheaded the effort to prosecute President Donald Trump’s perceived enemies; and he defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents publicly after they killed innocent Americans.

And like Mitchell, Blanche’s ploys for Trump are sending him to a dark place.

The Latest Court Ruling

Blanche figures prominently in the recent opinion of Judge Kathleen Williams of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. She ruled that Trump’s purported settlement of his $10 billion case against the IRS was a collusive farce.

The government had strong defenses to Trump’s lawsuit claim, including the statute of limitations bar; it asserted none of them. That's not surprising: Trump controlled the executive branch (including the IRS), which put him on both sides of the supposed dispute. Such a clear conflict of interest meant that there was no real “adverseness” between the plaintiff and defendant and, therefore, no “justiciable case or controversy” for the court to decide.

The purported settlement agreement established a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate, among others, January 6 insurrectionists whom Trump had pardoned. A separate, three-paragraph “release order” forever immunized Trump, his family members, and related parties from IRS investigations, claims, and audits that have haunted him for decades.

The court had harsh words—and sanctions—for the lawyers involved in perpetrating this abuse of the court process at taxpayers’ expense:

Alejandro Brito represented Trump as plaintiff in the case. The judge referred him to the Florida Bar for consideration, review, and determination as to whether disciplinary action is appropriate.

Daniel Z. Epstein’s name appeared on the complaint, and he signed the purported “settlement agreement” on behalf of plaintiff Trump. Epstein was a former White House senior associate counsel and special assistant to President Trump from 2017 until 2020. Because he is licensed to practice in Texas, not Florida, the judge barred his future applications to practice pro hac vice (special admission for a particular case) in the Southern District of Florida for a year or until her further order.

Stanley Woodward Jr., associate attorney general under Blanche at the Department of Justice, signed the bogus “settlement agreement” on behalf of the DOJ. The court observed that Woodward had “represented several individuals charged in connection with the events of January 6,........

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