U.S. Department of Justice

Overview

The U.S. Department of Justice is the federal executive department charged with enforcing federal law and administering justice — the rough American equivalent of the justice ministries other countries have. Its institutional history runs in two stages: the Judiciary Act of 1789 created the Office of the Attorney General, which over the years evolved into the head of the Department of Justice and the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government (U.S. Department of Justice). Then, in June 1870, Congress enacted a law titled “An Act to Establish the Department of Justice,” making the Attorney General head of a new executive department with direction and control of U.S. Attorneys and all other counsel employed on behalf of the United States, plus supervisory power over the accounts of U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals (U.S. Department of Justice).

The Attorney General’s stated mission is to supervise and direct the administration and operation of the 40 components that make up the department (U.S. Department of Justice). That supervision covers the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Bureau of Prisons, the Office of Justice Programs, and the U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals Service — all of which sit inside the department (U.S. Department of Justice). The office’s principal duties, as the department defines them, include representing the United States in legal matters; supervising the offices, boards, divisions and bureaus of the department; advising the President and the Cabinet on legal matters; recommending appointments to federal judgeships and to U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshal posts; and representing the government before the Supreme Court (U.S. Department of Justice). The department’s headquarters are at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, DC (U.S. Department of Justice).

How Todd Blanche became the 88th Attorney General

Todd Blanche’s path to the top of the department ran through two distinct careers. He began at the Justice Department itself, where he worked for nearly fifteen years in a variety of capacities — including as a contractor, a paralegal in the Criminal Division, and at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, where he eventually became an Assistant U.S. Attorney and later a supervisor (U.S. Department of Justice). After leaving the department, he became a defense attorney — and in that second career he represented President Donald Trump in three of the criminal cases brought against him in 2023 and 2024 (U.S. Department of Justice). Agence France-Presse adds the specifics: Blanche represented Trump in the New York trial over alleged “hush money” payments, and he was on the defense team in the two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith — the classified-documents case and the 2020-election case — both of which were dropped after Trump won the 2024 election (Agence France-Presse).

When Trump returned to the White House, he appointed Blanche as Deputy Attorney General. The department says Blanche is now “working tirelessly to implement President Trump’s priorities that include confronting illegal immigration, dismantling transnational drug organizations, combating violent crime and protecting American taxpayers from fraud” (U.S. Department of Justice). Then, in April 2026, Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi — in part, AFP reported, because she had failed to successfully prosecute several of Trump’s political enemies, notably former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (Agence France-Presse). Blanche, then the deputy, took over as acting Attorney General (The Indiana Lawyer).

Trump nominated Blanche to lead the department permanently, and the Senate confirmed him in an early-Saturday-morning vote, 50-49 — opposed by two Republicans who cited concerns about the department’s growing politicization (The Indiana Lawyer). The oath of office was administered at the White House by Emil Bove, a federal appeals court judge and another of Trump’s former attorneys; Todd Blanche was then sworn in as the 88th Attorney General of the United States on August 10, 2026, and arrived at Justice Department headquarters to cheers from employees lined along the entrance (The Indiana Lawyer; U.S. Department of Justice). Blanche has said he feels no pressure to placate Trump and sees no problem with the president’s interest in Justice Department matters, calling it the president’s “right” and “his duty” (The Indiana Lawyer). His defenders argue that the close relationship he built with Trump as his defense lawyer could make him more successful than Bondi was at pushing back on presidential demands (The Indiana Lawyer).

The department in 2026

The Justice Department Blanche inherited — and had already been running in an acting capacity since April — was visibly shaped by retribution politics. As deputy and then acting AG, Blanche oversaw investigations of Trump foes, including former FBI Director James Comey, whom the department indicted in April 2026 for a second time since Trump returned to the White House (The Indiana Lawyer). AFP reported the specifics of the newer case: an indictment of Comey for allegedly threatening Trump’s life in an Instagram post — part of what Democrats called a Trump “retribution” campaign against the president’s opponents (Agence France-Presse). Blanche has firmly rejected the characterization that the department has been weaponized; he has said his experience as Trump’s defense lawyer gave him a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump (The Indiana Lawyer).

Two controversies nearly derailed Blanche’s confirmation. The main sticking point was an attempt to establish a $1.8 billion fund for people Trump calls victims of political prosecutions — likely including the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 — which lawmakers of both parties described as a “slush fund” (Agence France-Presse). Blanche defused the opposition with a written order scrapping the so-called “anti-weaponization fund,” and told lawmakers it would not move forward under his tenure (The Indiana Lawyer; Agence France-Presse). The other issue was an agreement granting Trump immunity from tax audits: Blanche’s written order narrowed the deal — covering Trump, his two eldest sons and the Trump Organization — so it would apply only “retroactively” to past tax years and not to future filings (Agence France-Presse). AFP also reported that Blanche had drawn criticism from victims of Jeffrey Epstein over the department’s handling of the release of investigative files about the convicted sex offender, a one-time close associate of Trump (Agence France-Presse).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not name the deputy attorney general, since no source read in full for it confirmed the office’s current holder. It does not independently verify the underlying documents behind the scrapped $1.8 billion fund or the tax-audit immunity agreement — those are reported here as the cited outlets described them. It does not cover the department’s immigration-enforcement posture beyond Blanche’s stated priorities, and it takes no position on whether the department has been politicized; it reports what the participants themselves said and what the department did. Outcomes of the Comey prosecutions are not stated, since none were reported in the sources available.