特朗普选择他的辩护律师托德·布兰奇担任司法部副部长
【中美创新时报2024 年 11 月 14 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）当选总统唐纳德·J·特朗普周四表示，他将任命负责监督他对多项起诉的法律辩护的托德·布兰奇担任司法部二号人物。布兰奇先生曾是曼哈顿的联邦检察官，负责监督当选总统对多项起诉的法律辩护。《纽约时报》记者Devlin Barrett对此作了下述报道。
选择前曼哈顿联邦检察官布兰奇先生担任司法部副部长是对针对他的刑事案件的尖锐谴责。一天前，特朗普选择了佛罗里达州共和党人、联邦调查局和司法部尖刻批评者马特·盖茨担任司法部长。
布兰奇是特朗普今年在纽约州法院受审时的首席律师，该案最终以特朗普因 2016 年向一名色情明星支付封口费而被判犯有 34 项伪造商业记录罪。
布兰奇今年与这位当选总统建立了独特的联系，因为他曾在庭审中为他辩护。在曼哈顿刑事法院内，特朗普和布兰奇相隔数周坐在一起，在漫长的法律辩论和作证期间经常低声耳语。
在为特朗普辩护时，布兰奇组建了一个法律团队，他们不得不在总统竞选的压力下同时在多个法律战线上作战。50 岁的布兰奇离开了一家知名律师事务所，为特朗普辩护，而很少有大律师事务所愿意为特朗普辩护。
现在看来，这一赌注为布兰奇先生带来了丰厚的回报。针对特朗普先生的所有起诉的辩护策略可以归结为一个词：拖延。在大多数情况下，这一策略都奏效了，尽管效果并不完全符合他和他的团队最初的设想。
在此过程中，布兰奇先生经常面临法官的严厉批评，他们不喜欢特朗普的法律论点，也不喜欢这位候选人在法庭外的夸夸其谈。
作为一名年轻的检察官，布兰奇先生在曼哈顿联邦法院处理暴力犯罪案件，最终成为这项工作的主管。离开检察官办公室后，他成为了一名私人执业辩护律师。
特朗普辩护团队的其他成员也将获得重要任命：他说，他将任命在封口费案中为总统辩护的埃米尔·博夫 (Emil Bove) 为首席副司法部长，任命在最高法院代表特朗普辩护前总统有权享受广泛豁免权的 D·约翰·索尔 (D. John Sauer) 为司法部长。
题图：唐纳德·J·特朗普和托德·布兰奇在纽约法庭外，布兰奇先生是当选总统的辩护律师。图片来源：Todd Heisler/纽约时报
附原英文报道：
Trump Picks Todd Blanche, His Defense Lawyer, to Be Deputy Attorney General
Mr. Blanche, a former supervising federal prosecutor in Manhattan, oversaw the president-elect’s legal defense against multiple indictments.
Donald J. Trump with Todd Blanche outside court in New York, where Mr. Blanche was the president-elect’s defense lawyer.Credit…Todd Heisler/The New York Times
By Devlin Barrett
Reporting from Washington
Nov. 14, 2024
President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would name Todd Blanche, who oversaw his legal defense against multiple indictments, to become the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.
The selection of Mr. Blanche, a former supervising federal prosecutor in Manhattan, as the deputy attorney general at the Justice Department serves as a pointed rebuke to the criminal cases against him. A day earlier, Mr. Trump selected Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and a caustic critic of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, to become attorney general.
Mr. Blanche was Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer at his trial in New York state court this year, which ended in the former president being convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records, over a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star.
Mr. Blanche forged a unique connection to the president-elect this year, having defended him at trial. For weeks inside a Manhattan criminal courthouse, Mr. Trump and Mr. Blanche sat inches apart, often whispering to each other during long days of legal arguments and testimony.
In defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Blanche assembled a legal team that had to fight simultaneously on multiple legal fronts, all amid the pressure of a presidential campaign. Mr. Blanche, 50, left a prestigious law firm to represent Mr. Trump, a client whom few major firms were willing to represent.
That gamble now appears to have paid off handsomely for Mr. Blanche. The defense strategy for all of the indictments against Mr. Trump could be boiled down to one word: delay. And in most of the cases it worked, if not exactly how he and his team initially envisioned.
Along the way, Mr. Blanche often faced blistering criticism from judges who disliked Trump’s legal arguments, or the candidate’s bombast outside the courtroom.
As a young prosecutor, Mr. Blanche handled violent crimes cases in Manhattan federal court, eventually becoming a supervisor in that work. After leaving the prosecutor’s office, he became a private practice defense lawyer.
Others on Mr. Trump’s defense team are also in line to receive top assignments: He said he would name Emil Bove, who defended the president in the hush money case, as principal associate deputy attorney general, and D. John Sauer, who represented Mr. Trump before the Supreme Court in arguing that the former president was entitled to broad immunity, as solicitor general.
