During his confirmation hearing, Todd Blanche has been working hard to present himself as a credible, independent candidate for the role of Attorney General.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has been scrutinising whether Blanche can separate his identity as Trump’s former personal attorney from the demands of leading the Justice Department.
That task became significantly harder when Blanche appeared to undermine his own case during a telling exchange with a Republican senator.
Senator John Kennedy posed what should have been a straightforward question, asking Blanche simply whether he and President Trump were friends.
The answer Blanche gave was not what anyone in the room was expecting to hear from a nominee trying to assert his independence from his former client.
“I’m his lawyer — was his lawyer,” Blanche said, before catching himself mid-sentence and correcting the record.
He then added: “And now I’m the deputy attorney general,” attempting to recover from the slip without drawing further attention to it.
The moment was particularly notable because Kennedy was not attempting to trip Blanche up but was instead asking the question as part of a supportive line of questioning.
The Freudian slip handed critics fresh ammunition in an already contentious confirmation process, where Democratic senators have pressed Blanche repeatedly on his loyalty to Trump versus the rule of law.
Blanche served as one of Trump’s most prominent personal attorneys, representing him in several high-profile criminal cases before being nominated to lead the Justice Department as deputy attorney general.
The exchange illustrated the central tension running through the entire confirmation hearing, with Blanche struggling to draw a clean line between his past role and the independence his new position demands.
For a nominee whose confirmation partly hinges on convincing lawmakers he will act as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer rather than as a presidential ally, the slip was a significant, if unintentional, moment of candour.