Jack Smith spent two years and millions in taxpayer dollars trying to put Donald Trump behind bars.
His top deputy is still fighting – just with a different weapon.
Todd Blanche hasn’t even sat down in front of the Senate yet and they are already trying to destroy him.
The DOJ Alumni Letter and Who Actually Signed It
More than 1,200 former DOJ employees sent a 59-page letter to Senate Judiciary Committee leaders this week demanding they reject Todd Blanche's confirmation as attorney general.
Blanche – who served as Pam Bondi's deputy before Trump nominated him to run the department permanently – has his confirmation hearing Tuesday.
The signatories call themselves a bipartisan group of public servants who swore an oath "to support and defend the Constitution, not the occupant of the White House."
In reality, these are swamp creatures and Democrat hacks.
JP Cooney signed the letter.
Cooney was Jack Smith's top deputy during Smith's failed two-year attempt to criminally prosecute Donald Trump.
He's now running for Congress on a campaign platform built around the fact that he "spent [his] career standing up to powerful people and holding them accountable, including Donald Trump."
Robert Mueller's assistant special counsel Aaron Zelinsky signed it too – a veteran of Russiagate, the FBI investigation that evidence shows was a manufactured operation designed to destroy Trump's presidency.
Lori Lightfoot signed it.
"This list is a who's who of partisan activists, including liberal politicians such as former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who saw crime drastically rise under her tenure, Trump impeachment witness Pamela Karlan, and multiple former disgruntled Biden administration officials, some of whom were directly involved in the weaponization of the Department," a DOJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
A former White House official put it more bluntly: "It looks like they passed a petition around the MS NOW green room."
The letter itself claims Blanche has fired hundreds of DOJ employees for "having worked on cases the President didn't like."
What they call apolitical prosecutors, Trump calls weaponized ones — the same officials who spent four years building cases against him, his allies, and his supporters.
Law enforcement supports Blanche.
Police chiefs and sheriffs' associations representing law enforcement leadership across the country have endorsed his nomination.
Why the Senate Confirmation Vote Is Closer Than Anyone Is Saying
In October 2020, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter calling Hunter Biden's laptop Russian disinformation – and it buried the story weeks before the election.
Democrats know exactly what a coordinated pressure campaign can do to a confirmation vote.
They just need to pick off a handful of Republicans.
That context matters for what happens Tuesday.
Blanche walks into that hearing room facing Democrat senators who plan to grill him about his decision to seek a second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey – the charge stemming from Comey's Instagram post reading "86 47," widely interpreted as a call for violence against the president.
Democrats will use the hearing to paint Blanche as a partisan weapon rather than a law enforcement officer.
The letter gives them 1,200 signatures worth of institutional cover to do it.
Mitch McConnell is hospitalized.
Lindsey Graham – who held the line on more than one Trump nominee – is dead.
Lisa Murkowski has broken with her party before and will do it again.
Susan Collins is in a competitive Senate race and is already on record demanding assurances from Blanche.
John Cornyn and Thom Tillis are both leaving office – men with nothing to lose and no reason to take a hard vote for a nominee the establishment never wanted in the first place.
The target audience for this letter is not the American people or the full Senate — it's four or five Republicans who still care what the Washington establishment thinks of them.
Jack Smith's deputy didn't sign this letter out of constitutional concern — he signed it because Blanche now sits where the reckoning for that entire operation gets decided.
The hearing starts Tuesday – and the swamp just showed its hand.
Sources:
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Democrat politicos rerun underhanded leftist playbook in effort to torpedo Trump's AG nominee," Fox News, July 12, 2026.
- "Former DOJ employees urge Senate Judiciary to reject Todd Blanche AG nomination," Washington Examiner, July 7, 2026.
- "Senate Judiciary officially schedules Blanche's attorney general confirmation hearing for next week," Just the News, July 8, 2026.
- "Todd Blanche hearing set for July," Washington Examiner, June 16, 2026.
- House Judiciary Committee Republicans, "Biden campaign, Blinken orchestrated intel letter to discredit Hunter Biden laptop story," judiciary.house.gov, April 21, 2023.
- White House, "Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information," whitehouse.gov, January 20, 2025.