A former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York has launched a scathing critique of the Senate's confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general, calling it the single worst appointment of President Donald Trump's second term and an act of enduring "shame" for the GOP-controlled chamber.

Blanche, who served as Trump's personal criminal defense attorney in the Manhattan hush-money case before being tapped for the nation's top law enforcement post, was confirmed by the Republican-led Senate along largely party lines — a pattern that has held for most of Trump's second-term Cabinet.

James D. Zirin, who served as an SDNY prosecutor and now writes legal analysis and opinion pieces for The Hill, published his assessment on Tuesday morning. He argued that Blanche's confirmation represents a more damaging choice than several other controversial Trump nominees combined — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — because, in his view, Blanche "will serve only President Trump, not our precious rule of law."

"It is to the shame of the U.S. Senate that Blanche is now confirmed," Zirin wrote. "It is the worst appointment of the second Trump administration. Yes, you heard me — worse than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem put together, because he will serve only President Trump, not our precious rule of law."

Zirin pointed to what he described as a breadth of opposition within the legal community. He cited more than 1,200 former and current DOJ employees who urged the Senate to reject the nomination, as well as 35 former federal judges who argued that Blanche committed a fraud on the court. He also noted that sitting federal judges have stated that the Justice Department under Blanche's leadership is no longer entitled to the presumption of regularity — a long-standing judicial doctrine under which courts assume federal agencies act in good faith and follow proper procedures — asserting that "he has lied to the courts once too often."

Zirin referenced a July incident in which a judge forced Blanche's prosecutors to withdraw subpoenas served on New York Times reporters at their homes, after the court found serious irregularities.

He further criticized the Department of Justice's track record under Blanche of pursuing cases that grand juries declined to indict. Among the examples he cited was the DOJ's failure to secure even a single grand juror's approval for proposed criminal charges against six Democratic lawmakers who had released a video encouraging members of the military to refuse illegal orders. He also pointed to the failed attempt to indict a man for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent.

Zirin emphasized that the concern was not merely that prosecutors lost these cases, but that they chose to bring them at all. "The issue is not that he lost," he wrote. "Where is the judgment?"

Turning to what he called "the elephant in the room," Zirin addressed Blanche's handling of the Epstein files, criticizing the heavily redacted, incremental disclosures and what he described as the callous treatment of Epstein's victims. He cited a New York Times report by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan that, according to Zirin, revealed Blanche managed the Epstein case as a political matter, with key decisions made in collaboration with the White House.

Zirin closed by invoking a historical standard for prosecutors. In 1940, then-Attorney General Robert Jackson — who would go on to serve as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials — delivered what is often called the prosecutor's creed, declaring: "The citizen's safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility."

Blanche, Zirin concluded, "has been confirmed to serve 'factional purposes.' If he is not 'perfect,' he should not have been confirmed."