DOJ has no ‘investigations into words’ of Democrats, Todd Blanche says

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday there were no criminal investigations by the Justice Department into words spoken by senators or members of Congress, the same day that President Donald Trump once again called for six Democrats to be prosecuted over a social media video they posted last year.

“There’s no ongoing investigations, criminal investigations, into words that incoming senators or congressmen have said,” Blanche said at a news conference at the Justice Department.

Blanche’s comments came hours after Trump called for six sitting members of Congress to be charged over their speech in a social media video in which they told members of the intelligence and military communities not to obey unlawful orders. The Trump administration attempted to indict the the lawmakers earlier this year, but a federal grand jury in Washington unanimously rejected the charges.

“Will the Seditious Six ever be prosecuted? What they did was a great violation to our Country and its Constitution!” Trump posted on his social media website on Thursday morning.

Earlier in the week, the White House warned congressional Democrats that efforts to investigate the administration could be a crime. And on Wednesday, a top federal prosecutor sent a letter to a senator suggesting the lawmaker was under a civil rights investigation for his congressional probe of donors to Trump’s White House ballroom.

Blanche said he believed Americans should be worried by the rhetoric coming from some politicians since Democrats won the majority in both the House and Senate during the midterm election last week.

“Free speech is allowed,” Blanche said on Thursday. “But there can come a point when a criticism becomes a threat, and then when a threat becomes something criminal.”

Blanche said that point hadn’t been reached.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Aaron Reitz, who was recently named a top federal prosecutor after losing his race for attorney general, sent a letter this week demanding Sen. Richard Blumenthal preserve records in connection with a congressional investigation into donors to the White House ballroom project. Reitz, a former chief of staff to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, alleged it was harassment of citizens.

In response to the letter, Blumenthal said in a statement that he would not be intimidated and that he’d continue his investigation into the ballroom.

On Thursday, Blanche said Reitz was a “great U.S. attorney,” but did not explain why a prosecutor in Texas would be investigating a lawmaker in Washington, D.C., who is from Connecticut, nor did he explicitly state if Reitz had his approval before publicly announcing the inquiry on social media.

“Any office could investigate that,” Blanche said, when asked about the Reitz letter. “I’m the attorney general, so I don’t oversee every single thing that’s done, but yes, DOJ leadership is working with every U.S. attorney, including U.S. Attorney Reitz, on ongoing investigations.”

Trump last week ordered the Justice Department to investigate Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, claiming her remarks at a school amounted to a “criminal act.” In her remarks, Slotkin sent a “deterrence message” to those thinking about joining the Trump administration.

“The Department should stop threatening our constitutional freedoms and make clear that you will not again launch another frivolous investigation at the taxpayers’ expense,” an attorney for Slotkin said in a letter to Blanche this week.

Slotkin is also one of the members of Congress the Justice Department failed to indict over the video.