President-elect Trump announced he will nominate his criminal defense lawyers for three top posts in the Department of Justice, while his lead impeachment defender in the House got Trump's nod to head the Veterans Affairs Department. For the No. 2 DOJ spot, Trump named Todd Blanche, lead attorney in the New York hush money case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies, CNN reported. Another hush-money defender, Emil Bove, is Trump's pick as principal associate deputy attorney general. Blanche has also represented Trump in his two federal prosecutions, while Bove is Trump's counsel in one of those cases. For solicitor general, Trump said he will nominate John Sauer, who won the presidential immunity case at the Supreme Court. Trump's choice to lead the V.A. is Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), an Air Force Reserve chaplain and Iraq veteran who became the face of Trump’s first impeachment defense in the House in 2019, as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, the New York Times reported.
The choices are reflective of Trump’s dependence on his inner circle of allies, but the three DOJ picks also may be seen as more standard selections for the legal positions compared to his nod for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. The Gaetz nomination has sent a wave of uncertainty throughout Justice Department and F.B.I. headquarters, perhaps unlike anything experienced by the federal law enforcement establishment since Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, in 2017, the New York Times reported. Justice Department officials involved in the Trump prosecutions believed he would come after them if he won office. So, in recent months, some quietly took a step to protect themselves: increasing their insurance to pay lawyers to defend against legal action over their work. Since Trump was elected to a second term, career prosecutors, including members of the special counsel Jack Smith’s office, have contacted private-sector law firms for jobs, even though their status as career civil service employees provides them with some protection against being summarily fired. White-shoe law firms reported receiving a flood of résumés from department lawyers since Election Day.
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