‘Back to the Basics:’ AG Blanche Outlines Top DOJ Priorities

Election integrity, birth tourism, and tackling transnational repression and government weaponization are among the priorities of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Attorney General Todd Blanche told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview.

Blanche spoke to “American Thought Leaders” host Jan Jekielek about the DOJ’s focuses, challenges, and accomplishments as he works to reshape an agency he said was weaponized under the previous administration.

With consequential midterm elections kicking off in the coming weeks, the attorney general was asked what he felt the current and biggest vulnerabilities were.

“I think it’s obvious. It’s making sure that the only people voting are eligible to vote, and that we have assurance that that’s happening,” Blanche said. “That’s our biggest objective.”

The attorney general also shared the latest steps his agency is taking against the threats facing the United States—from both within and beyond its borders.

Election Integrity

President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up efforts against illegal noncitizen voting.

“This isn’t an isolated issue in a particular state. It’s something that’s happening, I think, unfortunately, in a lot of states,” Blanche said.

On Oct. 5, the DOJ announced 16 individuals facing charges including voting by aliens in federal elections, false claims of U.S. citizenship to register or vote, and false statements on citizenship applications.

A grand jury indicted 10 foreign nationals who allegedly registered and voted illegally in Minnesota in the 2022, 2024, and 2026 elections, the Justice Department said on Sept. 30.

To date, the DOJ has charged nearly 100 foreign nationals over illegal voting, Blanche said.

“What do you hear from the critics about that? ‘Well, it’s not that many. We’ve only charged 96 people.’ What does that matter?” Blanche said. “For months and months, it was, ‘There’s no proof there’s anybody voting illegally,’ and then it was, ‘Well, OK, there’s a little bit of proof,’ and then we keep on coming up with more and more examples of it happening.”

The DOJ currently has “hundreds and hundreds” of ongoing cases, the attorney general said.

Federal prosecutors recently suffered a setback when Judge David Leibowitz of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida threw out a DOJ case against a Jamaican woman who voted in a U.S. federal election. The judge ruled that the federal voter statute, which prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, used by the Justice Department was unconstitutional.

In New Jersey, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said about 6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024. Fewer than 400 had voted.

“I think the only thing that I can do as attorney general is continue to investigate and continue to try to expose and uncover examples where [illegal voting is] happening,” Blanche said.

He said that an illegal voting case is exceedingly difficult to investigate and prosecute but that the solution to the problem is easy: a nationwide voter ID requirement.

“It’s become a very partisan issue, and it shouldn’t be, because I don’t know why only Republicans care about ‘one person, one vote.’ Democrats should, too,” he said. “I hope that at some point in the next several months, both sides can come together and realize we really need to change some of our fundamental voting practices.”

He expressed frustration at Congress for not passing the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of American citizenship before voting in federal elections.

The House of Representatives advanced it earlier this year, but it has since stalled in the Senate.

Like every election since the 1960s, the attorney general said his agency will monitor the 2026 midterms.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced last month that the DOJ plans to send 1,000 federal election monitors around the country for the November general election, calling it the “largest monitoring effort in [DOJ] history.”

Weaponization of Government

Return to the basics: This is the message former Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Blanche himself, and other DOJ officials have instilled in department employees.

“Getting the drugs off our streets, going after cartels, stopping the fraud, stopping the illegal immigration, stopping the violent crime,” he said. “If prosecutors and agents are working on those types of crimes, they don’t have time to meddle in places they shouldn’t be meddling.”

Blanche said that to get “back to the basics,” his agency must acknowledge and act on past conduct he characterized as weaponization.

The DOJ released a report on Oct. 5 revealing a Biden-era plan to label parents who protested at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists” and prosecute them under federal law.

The findings also detailed intense pushback among officials from multiple federal agencies, warning the plan was likely outside federal jurisdiction, violated parents’ First Amendment right to free speech, and would be seen as politically motivated.

“Parents were either physically stopped from talking, verbally stopped from talking and speaking up about what was happening in their schools and with their kids, and even at times even arrested and prosecuted for standing up and talking,” Blanche said.

The DOJ, under former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the National School Boards Association called on the FBI and other federal agencies to form a task force to investigate parents who object to hot-button issues, such as COVID-19-era mandates, critical race theory education, and school transgender policies.

According to the DOJ, 25 individuals were flagged by the task force for investigation. None were prosecuted.

“How could it be that an activist organization can go to the FBI and the Department of Justice and encourage them to actually arrest parents and investigate parents who are speaking up for their kids?” Blanche said.

The DOJ report is meant to outline for Americans how this scenario unfolded, the attorney general said, and how it will never happen again.

He pushed back on the idea of seeking revenge or indicting individuals over political beliefs.

“Some people say, ‘Well, Biden did it, so you should do it too,’” Blanche said. “That’s not what President Trump has ever said to me, and that’s not what President Trump has told the American people. He said that he wants a Department of Justice that is doing the right thing and executing on their mission.”

Democrats have accused the Trump DOJ of going after its political enemies after federal grand juries indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James over bank fraud and false statements charges and former FBI Director James Comey, accusing him of making a false statement and obstructing a criminal case.

Both cases were dismissed, but the DOJ is asking a federal appeals court to revive them. Comey was indicted by another federal grand jury in April on charges of threatening to harm or kill Trump. He is asking the judge to dismiss this case, alleging a vindictive prosecution.

Anti-weaponization efforts at the DOJ were largely influenced by what happened to Trump, his family, and others following the 2020 presidential election defeat, Blanche said.

Anyone close to Trump at that time “had their lives turned upside down by the last administration.”

“We’re going to go back to putting bad guys in jail, we’re going to go back to making our community safe,” Blanche said.

He also said that the DOJ would evaluate itself.

Violent crime rates have dropped across the nation since Trump retook office. He has highlighted the lowest U.S. murder rate in 125 years.

Birth Tourism

The DOJ launched a Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force in August after the Supreme Court on June 30 rejected Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship that would have prevented children of illegal immigrants and legal temporary visitors from obtaining U.S. citizenship at birth.

“[The Supreme Court] didn’t give us what we wanted in that case,” Blanche said.

But the justices also “made it clear that there were certain safeguards that [the DOJ] could put in place,” he said, to prevent individuals from coming to the United States solely to have a child.

Trump signed a narrowed order on Aug. 6 to limit birthright citizenship, but a federal judge has since blocked its enforcement.

Following the Supreme Court’s rejection of Trump’s first bid, concerns that adversarial foreign nationals will exploit the loophole have risen.

Birth tourism ads are targeting Chinese citizens, and a Houston facility was shut down after it facilitated more than 1,000 births for Chinese foreign nationals.

“Within the visa process, within the application process, whether it’s the person running the travel agency or the pregnant person coming, there are questions asked that are answered dishonestly during that process,” Blanche said.

The cases are difficult to prove, the attorney general said, but the DOJ is working alongside Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to bolster the visa process.

The State Department has revoked hundreds of visas from foreign nationals accused of participating in birth tourism.

Patel told lawmakers during congressional testimony on Sept. 15 that his agency is working with Congress on legislation to reduce the schemes.

Transnational Repression

Blanche classified Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage and transnational repression cases as a “big priority” for his DOJ.

Over the past year, the agency has charged several individuals with attempting to silence dissidents from the CCP, using physical violence in some cases, he said.

Many cases are ongoing, and arrests will continue so long as the conduct continues, Blanche said.

In New York, a man was accused of operating a Chinese police station. He was found guilty in May of being a foreign agent for China.

Not every case is as straightforward as this one.

“Some of these cases are very difficult to charge criminally because it isn’t obvious that the person doing it is violating the law as opposed to just exercising the rights that we hold dear,” Blanche said.

A former mayor in California, Eileen Wang, pleaded guilty on May 29 to one count of acting as a foreign agent of China.

Her infiltration of one of the highest positions of power in an American city raised questions about the extent of Beijing’s influence in the United States—a threat that experts have warned will deepen.

Asked whether the DOJ is statutorily prepared to handle such complex cases, Blanche said existing laws in the country, alongside the Treasury and Commerce Departments’ imposition of sanctions on institutions supporting espionage and transnational repression, are “more than enough.”

“This is an area that is complicated because not only [do] you have to know the motivation behind it but it’s also hard to catch because once you catch one, there’s a lot of others,” he said.

History With Trump

Before he was confirmed as attorney general under Trump, Blanche was second-in-command to his predecessor, Bondi, before she was removed. Blanche was also Trump’s personal defense attorney before the 2024 presidential election victory.

“He’s the first former president to need as many lawyers as he did,” Blanche said.

He was among a core group of about 10 attorneys defending Trump for cases in Atlanta, New York, Florida, and the District of Columbia.

Blanche said their shared history bears some weight on his role as attorney general, but not any more than previous individuals who served in the same position.

“I respect him more than any man in the world. I hope he respects me, but he always knows that he will get an honest answer out of me, good or bad,” Blanche said.

Referring to Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which describes executive branch heads as officers who must answer to the president, Blanche said every attorney general is loyal to his commander in chief.

The president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” Article II reads. Trump cannot personally execute every statute, but he has authority over those who do it for him.

“I’m working every day for the American people,” Blanche said, “and it’s the greatest privilege that I’ll ever have in my lifetime.”

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