U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche delivered his first address to the Department of Justice workforce on August 13, 2026, laying out a message centered on integrity, respect for the judiciary, and the department’s core mission of upholding the law. Blanche acknowledged a turbulent period for a depleted DOJ workforce while urging employees to focus on positive accomplishments and continue doing the right thing. His comments also emphasized avoiding performative attacks on legal institutions, signaling a push for a more disciplined approach to the department’s relationship with the courts. The speech comes as the Justice Department faces intense scrutiny, making Blanche’s opening message a significant statement about the direction of the agency.
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NewsTranscript
00:00All right. All right. Thank you. You clap because I'm your boss.
00:08Thank you very much, Jolene. I appreciate it. Good morning. Good morning to everybody here
00:14and to folks watching. Thank you for spending a few minutes with me. I wanted to address
00:21everybody within the department, say hello and talk for a few minutes. So thank you.
00:27I want to start by thanking President Trump for having the confidence in me first to nominate me
00:37to be the Deputy Attorney General and then to nominate me to be your Attorney General. I believe
00:43and I truly believe that there is no better job for a lawyer, no better way for a lawyer to
00:51serve
00:52this country than to work within the Department of Justice. And so me getting the opportunity to
00:59serve again within the department and now to lead the department is something I promise you I will
01:04never take for granted. I also want to take a moment and thank Attorney General Bondi for her leadership,
01:13for her friendship that we had over the past several years. The foundation that she laid for
01:20for 14 months within this department is extraordinarily important to me and to those around me and really
01:29put us in a position to succeed. So thank you. But mostly I want to thank every one of you.
01:38You make me look good. When I talk to the President, when I talk to Congress like I spent the
01:47past few months doing,
01:50when I talk to the American people, when I meet with other leaders, whether it's at the state level or
01:56at the national level or visitors,
02:00when I talk about all the ways that we're having success, when I talk about the ways we're making America
02:09safe,
02:10when I talk about the wins, when I talk about the successes, I know that it's not me doing that.
02:18And I still take full credit.
02:22But I mean that. I mean the wins, the successes, the work that you all put in every day, there
02:29are no better lawyers,
02:31there's no better paralegals, there's no better support staff, no better civil servants anywhere in the world than those that
02:40work here at the Department of Justice.
02:44And I want to talk about for a minute the brave men and women that work at the Department of
02:49Justice in a law enforcement capacity.
02:52I don't want to leave anybody out. The marshals, ATF, DEA, FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, our criminal investigators, OIG.
03:03You make cases for us. You make sacrifices for us. You put your lives on the line every day.
03:10When you hug your loved ones in the morning, it's a little bit different than when I hug my loved
03:16ones,
03:16because you know that there's a chance that you may not come home.
03:20And, and so we're, everybody in this room is eternally grateful to our, our great law enforcement partners that work
03:29at the Department of Justice.
03:30I, some of you guys may have heard this already, and I'm sorry to repeat myself, but it's my story.
03:35And so I have to say it over and over. I started in the bond building in year of our
03:43Lord, 1995.
03:47When I was in college, I started as an intern. I started for one semester, my senior year of college.
03:55I extended it to two semesters. I then convinced them to hire me as a contractor, where I worked for
04:03a year in the asset forfeiture money laundering section,
04:06and then got a job as a, as a government paralegal, as a paralegal specialist, one floor up, I think,
04:13maybe two, I think one floor up in the bond building,
04:16in the narcotic and dangerous drug section, where I worked for two years.
04:20And then I moved to New York with my young family and continued working as a paralegal in the SDNY
04:26U.S. Attorney's Office,
04:28where I stayed for about four years while I went to Knight Law School.
04:31And I, I loved every minute of those jobs, every job.
04:38When I was an intern, when I was a contractor, when I was a paralegal here, when I was a
04:43paralegal in New York,
04:45I, I loved the passion I saw and the, the prosecutors and the, the support staff.
04:50I loved the, the mission. I loved the camaraderie.
04:53It was every, every job I had was just a little bit better and a little bit more fun than
04:58the one that I'd had before.
05:00I then, as, as hopefully you, you know, had the privilege of serving as an AUSA in, in the SDNY
05:08for nine years.
05:09And once again, I loved that job just a little bit more than I loved every job I had had
05:14before that.
05:16And, and every step, every one of those jobs, everything that I did during, during my professional career,
05:25made me, um, who, who I am today.
05:28And, and so when, when you think about who you are and the, the body of work and, and, and
05:33what you've done,
05:34how that influences the decisions that you make today and the things that you do,
05:39I, I am the same way.
05:41And so, um, I, I tell you that first as Deputy Attorney General and now as your Attorney General,
05:47I, I will, I promise you that I will lead this department with integrity,
05:54I promise you that I will focus on our core mission, which is to uphold the rule of law fairly
06:01and impartially
06:02to keep this great country safe and to protect the rights of every citizen in this country.
06:09And I, I think about integrity and, and, and that as a word,
06:15but it's really in my mind keeping a promise to each other, to yourself and to everybody that you interact
06:23with.
06:24And, and for what we do, it's a promise that, that we're going to uphold the law without fear or
06:30favor.
06:30It's a promise that when it comes to the criminal side, that we're going to go after criminals.
06:36If you, if you break into somebody's home and you commit a robbery and it's a federal crime, we're going
06:41to prosecute you.
06:42If you sell drugs, we're going to prosecute you.
06:45If you steal from the Fisk, we're going to prosecute you.
06:48And, and it's, it's a promise that, that everybody in this building, everybody watching, the career professionals that do their
06:57jobs
06:57every day with honesty and, and with courage, not because something they read in the media or something that they
07:03hear,
07:04but because it's exactly the right thing to do.
07:07It's, it's a promise that, that we will always protect and that we will always defend our law enforcement partners
07:16in this country.
07:17The men and women who, who run towards danger every day are the men and women that everybody in this
07:24department will be committed to protecting.
07:29Everyone in this room, everybody watching at our U.S. Attorney's offices across the country and our federal law enforcement
07:36offices across the country
07:38have a lot to be proud of, of what we've accomplished over the past year and a half.
07:42And, you know, it's easy to focus on, on the, the negative or the news story that is critical of
07:50something that we're doing or something that we've done,
07:52or questions something that we're doing or something that we've done.
07:55But do not forget that we have accomplished a tremendous amount of good, positive work in the past year and
08:03a half.
08:04Just the, the violent crime rates in this country have gone way, way down.
08:10And that's not all the federal government.
08:12But it's certainly, we are certainly a big part of that success.
08:16We have, we have arrested hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of violent offenders, both in the drug space, human trafficking
08:28space, and other space.
08:29These are men and women who are now removed from our communities so that our communities can be safer.
08:36And that's work that you all have done over the past year and a half.
08:41We captured most of the FBI's ten most wanted.
08:46We've seized thousands, thousands of kilograms of fentanyl that would otherwise have poisoned our communities and our neighbors.
08:57Something that we did early on, which I think is important, we designated the major cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
09:04Because that's what they are.
09:05They're terrorists.
09:07They murder, they traffic, and poison for profit.
09:10And, and as you all have seen, we're using every tool in our arsenal to go after these terrorists.
09:18Whether it's just enhanced charges at the, at the prosecution level, asset forfeiture, pressure on their networks here and abroad.
09:24And we're seeing success in actually making a, a real difference in this country in, in what has been a
09:33war on drugs since most of us were, were young, were, were children.
09:38We're aggressively going after violent criminals, gangs, TDA, MS-13, Bloods, Crips, any of the, of the gangs that, that
09:47target our communities.
09:49And we're not going to stop doing that.
09:52And, and, and I, I want to say it again, but I, I, I, it's something that I say every
09:56time that I, I speak to any law enforcement organization.
10:00And I hope that you all share this vision with me, that we will always back the blue and back
10:07our federal law enforcement partners without apology.
10:11And what that means at the federal level is that any time somebody assaults a federal law enforcement officer, we
10:18will prosecute them to the best of our ability.
10:22I think it's, it's, it's important to talk about the, the work that this department has done protecting and defending
10:29the integrity of our borders and the enforcement of our immigration laws.
10:33It's not optional to do that.
10:35It's foundational to the rule of law and to the safety of our communities.
10:41When, when we talk about, and we've talked a lot about protecting the FISC, we are pouring a lot of
10:48energy and a lot of resources into anybody who's committing a fraud against this government.
10:56And we're going to continue to defend the executive branch's policies and regulations and, and that, whether that means standing
11:06up for an agency being targeted because of a decision or rule they make,
11:10or whether it means our great civil division attorneys, civil division AUSAs across the country pursuing affirmative litigation, which we're
11:16doing a ton of, defending our rights as citizens in quorums across the country.
11:20That's extraordinarily important work that, that is, is, is, is often done behind closed doors and often not on the
11:28front page of, of the papers, but it's, it's, it's the core of, of, of the essence of what keeps
11:34the executive branch running.
11:35And so we're going to continue to do that.
11:37Our appellate attorneys here at Maine Justice, our appellate attorneys at U.S. Attorney's offices across the country have had
11:43a, a very busy year, and I think that will continue.
11:47But the work that you're doing defending decisions and defending convictions in the criminal space and defending decisions by lower
11:54courts, appealing decisions by lower courts that we disagree with, making sure that every case we bring or we defend
12:00is decided based on the facts and the law and not for some other purpose.
12:07I want to speak for just one minute about what, what I really love about this department if it hasn't
12:14come out already.
12:16What I have seen over the past 30 years working intimately with this department is that this department succeeds when
12:28people of different backgrounds, different politics, different life experiences put the mission of the department forward.
12:36The best, the best, the best, the best AUSAs, the best trial attorneys, the best support staff, the best agents
12:44I've known are perfectly comfortable arguing fiercely in the conference room or in your offices about the best strategy or
12:54the best path forward.
12:55But when they walk out of that conference, when they write that brief, when they go into court, they execute
13:04the decided plan as one team, one mission, one goal.
13:09That's what this department has done for generations.
13:13And that's what we are going to continue to do every single day.
13:19I think disagreement is extraordinarily healthy.
13:22I think disagreement is the only way that we make the best decisions as a department.
13:29I think that we should continue to do that because I think the fair of administration of justice and us
13:37doing our jobs depend on that.
13:39And I want to encourage everybody to do that.
13:42We are going to, as we always do, defend the Constitution of the United States vigorously in court.
13:49We will always respect the role of the judiciary.
13:53We will not engage in or stand for any sort of performative attacks that undermine the institutions that we are
14:00sworn to uphold.
14:01At the same time, we are not going to be intimidated.
14:05We are not going to be intimidated out of enforcing the law or doing our jobs or executing the goals
14:11and priorities that we have in this administration.
14:15Remember that we came in here a year and a half ago and one of the things that we really
14:22wanted to do is make sure that we were doing all we can to restore law and order,
14:28to restore safety in this country.
14:31Our job is to deliver on, on, on that mandate every single day.
14:37And I don't say that to say that we need to start doing that.
14:41That's something that we've been doing.
14:42I'm saying that I'm, I'm joining you today on a, on a, on a cruise ship or a sailboat.
14:51What I'm going to call it is sailing in the right direction and we're going to continue to do that.
14:56To, I want to again just talk about the, the, the federal agents that work in this department.
15:02The deputies, our law enforcement components.
15:05And thank you for the risks that you take every day.
15:09And to our civil, to our criminal, AUSAs around the country, to our trial attorneys here at Maine Justice.
15:17You all are the tip of the spear in our communities.
15:21And I say that all the time.
15:23I say that every time I, I go to a U.S. Attorney's office or every time I talk here
15:27at Maine Justice.
15:28Our prosecutors, our trial attorneys, are the ones that are doing the actual work.
15:34When the cases are made by our agents, when the cases are made, are presented in, in any sort of
15:39a civil context.
15:40Whether it's defense or civil affirmative litigation.
15:43Our prosecutors that are in court fighting every day are the tip of the spear.
15:47The work that you're doing will not only affect your communities in this country today,
15:52but in many times will shape the law for generations to come.
15:56So thank you very much to the analysts and the professionals who work tirelessly for the department every day.
16:03And I was one of you.
16:05I, I know that the work that you do rarely makes the headlines.
16:08That's a good thing.
16:10But I also know that this department does not function without you.
16:14And, and I don't think we give you all the credit you deserve.
16:18Nobody calls you when things are going well.
16:20We just call you when there's a problem.
16:22That's not fair.
16:23But we do thank you very much for your, for your service.
16:26Everybody in this department, whether it's here in DC or around the country, work hard.
16:33Your hours are long.
16:35Stakes are high.
16:37There's probably days when the work and the bureaucracy feels heavier than the mission that you're actually trying to, to
16:44execute on.
16:46But on those days, I would, what I do is remember why you signed up for this job.
16:52Remember that the work you're doing and why it matters.
16:55Remember the victims that you're helping, that you're representing, that you're trying to make whole.
16:59The communities you're making safer, the rule of law that you're defending.
17:03And hopefully that helps you get through the day.
17:05I know that I will not, I will not get every decision right.
17:11Everything that I do will not be the right path to the right decision.
17:16No one does that, but I, I do promise you this.
17:19I promise you that I will work as hard as any of you.
17:23I promise you that I will listen to you.
17:27That I will listen to the ideas that you have or the adjustments that we need to make.
17:31And if we need to make them, I will make them.
17:34I want people who want to do the right thing every day.
17:39Because that's what I do every day, or at least that's what I try to do every day.
17:43If you do that, I promise I will back you every step of the way.
17:47I'm, I can't tell you how, how proud I am to stand with you guys.
17:53I can't tell you how overcome with emotion I am when I think about how lucky and how blessed I
17:59am to be where I am today.
18:02I, I, I want, my goal at the end of the day is that when, when we're finished, when I,
18:09when I leave this department, whenever that is, that I'm leaving it stronger, more respected, more faithful to its highest
18:17ideals than when I found it.
18:19And, and that should be every single person's goal every single day.
18:24And so I'm going to end by, by the way that I started, which is by just thanking you for
18:31your service and thanking you all for your sacrifice and for the, the hard work that you put in and,
18:38and also for the privilege of letting me stand next to you in this journey over the next several years.
18:45God bless the Department of Justice, God bless the United States of America, and let's get back to work.
18:54Thank you guys very much.
18:55I appreciate it.
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