Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche showered President Donald Trump with praise during a Justice Department anti-fraud press conference and said any decision on permanently replacing Pam Bondi was up to the president.
"As to whether or not I want this job, I did not ask for this job. I love working for President Trump," Blanche said in his first public remarks since Bondi's firing. "It's the greatest honor of a lifetime, and if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that's an honor."
Blanche added: "If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, 'Thank you very much. I love you, sir.'"
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Blanche's remarks came after Trump announced last week that Bondi would be leaving her role and that Blanche, his formal personal attorney and the DOJ's deputy attorney general, would fill in indefinitely as acting attorney general.
Officials can serve in an acting capacity for up to 210 days. Trump has not signaled a nominee to take the role permanently, but he could nominate Blanche. Fox News Digital previously reported that the president has also had discussions with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin about taking the job.
Blanche noted that Bondi's transition out of the department remained ongoing. Bondi announced last week that she would take the next 30 days to shift responsibilities to Blanche.
When asked why she was pushed out of her job, Blanche said "nobody has any idea… except for the president." Trump had fired Bondi after she failed to secure successful indictments against some of Trump's top political rivals and amid long-simmering frustrations with her handling of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case files.
"As far as Pam Bondi's last day on the job, I am the acting attorney general," Blanche said, adding, "We've been regularly communicating over the past several days for an appropriate transition. She is very much a big supporter of this department."
Most of Blanche's remarks focused on the DOJ's crackdown on fraud, as he pointed to several recent cases totaling more than half a billion dollars in healthcare and COVID-19-related schemes.
Blanche cited a string of examples, including prosecutors securing a guilty plea in a $160 million healthcare enrollment fraud operation and a sentencing in a $100 million COVID-19 fraud case. He contended that such cases represented a fraction of the fraud occurring nationwide and formally rolled out the DOJ's new National Fraud Enforcement Division, led by newly confirmed Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, who stood by Blanche during his remarks.
The division, Blanche said, would involve specialized prosecutors and expanded staffing in U.S. attorney's offices across the country, and it would use more advanced technology to more effectively investigate fraud.
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"We have a storied history of combating fraud and bringing criminal actors to justice, but the department has never adopted a comprehensive and coordinated approach to investigating and prosecuting fraud against taxpayer dollars and taxpayer-funded programs," Blanche said.
Former U.S. Attorney John Fishwick of Virginia told Fox News Digital he thought Blanche appeared to be vying for the attorney general role.
"Todd Blanche seems to be trying out for the top job today in his opening press conference and surely trying to catch Trump's attention with his criticism of many of the questions by the press," Fishwick said in a statement, observing how Blanche derided some reporters for their questions.
