In a move that has Whitehall legal circles reaching for their smelling salts and a stiff sherry, Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate Todd Blanche as permanent Attorney General. Yes, the same Todd Blanche who defended the former president in his New York hush-money trial, a man whose legal strategy can be summed up as 'shout the word witch at every conceivable volume.'
To be clear, this is not a promotion based on merit, but rather a reward for loyalty, which in Trump's world is the highest currency. It matters not that Blanche's courtroom performance was akin to a pig doing ballet: technically possible but spiritually wrong. The man argued that Michael Cohen lying under oath was fine because everyone lies, a proposition that would make even a used car salesman blush.
What alarms Whitehall, that bastion of tweed and understated corruption, is the precedent. Imagine if Boris Johnson nominated his toothbrush as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, something he seems entirely capable of doing. The British legal establishment, which still sniffs at the American habit of televising court proceedings, now faces the prospect of an Attorney General who treats the law like a suggestion box at a pirate convention.
Blanche's appointment signals a seismic shift in the American legal system, from one where justice is blind to one where justice has a MAGA hat on and is shouting at a Starbucks barista. For the UK, it is a chilling reminder that the special relationship now extends to exporting constitutional crises. One can almost hear the collective groan from the Royal Courts of Justice, a sound like a thousand leather-bound volumes sighing in unison.
But let us not be too hasty to judge. Perhaps Blanche will surprise us. Perhaps he will uphold the rule of law with the stoic dignity of a British barrister, sipping tea while dismantling cross-examinations. Or perhaps he will spend his tenure investigating the deep state's role in Trump's hair volume, which is a statistical impossibility.
In any case, Whitehall should prepare for a deluge of extradition requests for anyone who has ever said a harsh word about the former president's golf swing. This is the new normal: a legal system where the Attorney General's primary qualification is that he hasn't been caught sleeping during the president's monologues. The death of shame, ladies and gentlemen, is now a constitutional principle.
So raise a glass of warm gin to Todd Blanche, the man who will now embody American justice. May his tenure be as brief as a Trump attention span and as transparent as a politician's expenses. God save the Queen, but God help the rule of law.
