While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems like the No. 1 target for impeachment, a former federal prosecutor wants House Democrats to go after Attorney General Todd Blanche first when they take over the chamber in January.
He believes a single count will end Blanche’s reign as head of the Department of Justice.
Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and deputy assistant attorney general, made the case in a column for The New Republic on Monday.
“It is high time to impeach Todd Blanche,” he wrote.
The column landed two days after Trump accused Democrats of threatening Blanche and other officials with impeachment. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, the president called it “extortion at the highest level” and ordered the department to look into it.
On Sunday, Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash that whether Democratic lawmakers could face prison “depends on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”
Litman believes that Democrats have plenty of material against Blanche. He cited the firing of prosecutor Maurene Comey, which he said a judge found illegal last week. But he argued that a single count on retaliatory prosecutions would keep the focus on what he sees as the clearest mark of authoritarian rule.
“Yet if I were drafting the articles, I’d opt to set aside, for the time being, all those horrendous abuses in the sycophantic service of Donald Trump and advance a single count: that Blanche has wielded the power of federal prosecution to punish the president’s enemies,” he wrote.
He pointed to the cases against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and six Democratic lawmakers who recorded a video telling troops they could refuse illegal orders.
In his view, such prosecutions violate due process and, when they punish speech, the First Amendment. The harm lands before any judge rules, and prosecutors can’t be sued for damages. “Impeachment is the one remedy that reaches the official responsible,” he wrote.
Litman compared Blanche to Hegseth, who faces an impeachment vote that GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is gathering votes to bring to the table. Massie’s articles cover the Iran war and deadly strikes on boats. Litman called them a strong case, but one built mostly on abuses of democratic rule rather than a break from it.
The lone exception, he wrote, is a charge that Hegseth threatened Sen. Mark Kelly with prosecution over the illegal-orders video. Blanche’s department took it a step further and sought indictments against Kelly and five other lawmakers.
In a defiant video, Hegseth responded to the pending impeachment. “This is not about me, but of course the other side, they’re obsessed. A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democratic allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly. Just like they tried against President Trump twice," Hegseth.
Rep. Hank Johnson said last week that Blanche should be impeached and removed from office, and Rep. Jamie Raskin is set to chair the House Judiciary Committee, where any articles against Blanche would begin.
