President-elect Donald Trump tapped his personal attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove on Thursday to serve in the second and third most powerful positions in the Department of Justice.
Trump selected Blanche to serve as deputy attorney general and Bove to serve as principal associate deputy attorney general.
Trump praised the pair’s legal backgrounds in a statement, saying they would both be “crucial” to fulfilling his vision for the DOJ. Blanche and Bove both once worked in top roles in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and both were at the helm of Trump’s defense team for his hush money case in New York.
Trump was convicted by a jury in the case of falsifying business records, but Bove recently said in an email exchange that was unsealed this week that the defense attorneys plan to ask the court to dismiss Trump’s case in light of his election victory.
Blanche, a onetime registered Democrat and longtime New York lawyer, founded his own law firm, Blanche Law, and began defending Trump in 2023. He has also had his hands in Trump’s federal criminal cases.
Trump said Blanche would be responsible for “fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long.”
Bove is a partner at Blanche’s firm. Trump said Bove, an even-keeled former national security prosecutor, “is a tough and strong attorney, who will be a crucial part of the Justice Department, rooting out corruption and crime.”
Trump’s DOJ picks follow a pattern of the president-elect nominating his most loyal supporters. Their nominations came one day after Trump shocked Washington D.C. by choosing Matt Gaetz, a controversial firebrand and one of Trump’s most vocal and ardent defenders, to serve as attorney general.
While Blanche and Bove have a clearer path to being confirmed by the Senate, Gaetz’s nomination appears far less certain after several senators expressed reservations about him when Trump issued his announcement.
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Trump also revealed on Thursday that he tapped former Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer, a fast-talking lawyer who has presented many high-profile oral arguments, to serve as U.S. solicitor general.
Sauer successfully argued to the Supreme Court that presidents enjoy some immunity from criminal prosecution, a landmark case that immediately began to reap rewards for Trump in his criminal cases over the summer.
