On the office of the attorney general and the independence it demands

The New York Times reports that Senate Democrats have pressed nominee Todd Blanche for answers about subpoenas issued to that very publication — subpoenas that were, by the account given, subsequently withdrawn. I did not live to see the modern apparatus of federal law enforcement, and I will not pretend otherwise. But I know something of the principle at stake: when the government's chief law officer turns the instruments of legal compulsion toward those who scrutinize the government, the Republic ought to sit up and take careful notice.

The attorney general is not the president's personal counsel. He is counsel to the law itself, and through the law, to the people. That distinction is not a formality; it is the load-bearing wall of republican government. An administration that blurs the line between its own political interests and the independent administration of justice does not merely inconvenience its critics — it erodes the very foundation of public trust upon which every legitimate authority rests.

I have long warned of the danger that faction poses to free institutions. Nothing accelerates that danger more reliably than a justice apparatus perceived — rightly or wrongly — to serve the party in power rather than the law itself. Once citizens conclude that prosecution follows political loyalty, they withdraw their confidence from the courts. And a republic whose citizens do not trust its courts is already halfway to disorder.

The withdrawal of the subpoenas in question may be taken as a correction, and corrections are to be welcomed. But as I am told by the Times report, the nomination proceeds with questions yet unanswered before the committee vote. A confirmation hearing is precisely the moment designed by our constitutional compact for this accounting. Senators who press for transparency in that forum are doing their institutional duty, not staging a factional performance — provided, of course, that their purpose is genuine oversight and not mere delay.

My counsel is this: the nominee, if he is to serve the Republic rather than a patron, would do well to answer plainly. Evasion before a confirmation committee sets a precedent for evasion in office. And the senators of both parties would do well to judge the answers on their civic merit — asking not "does this serve my faction?" but "does this protect the independence of the law?" The office is greater than the officeholder. It is greater still than the party that placed the officeholder there.