While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has emerged as the most prominent impeachment target ahead of a potential Democratic takeover of the House in January, former federal prosecutor Harry Litman argues that Attorney General Todd Blanche should be first in line — and that a single count could end his tenure atop the Department of Justice.

Impeaching a Cabinet officer runs through the same constitutional machinery as impeaching a president: a simple majority in the House brings the articles, and removal from office requires a two-thirds conviction in the Senate — a threshold no Cabinet secretary has ever cleared.

Litman, who previously served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and as deputy assistant attorney general, laid out the argument in a column for The New Republic published Monday.

“It is high time to impeach Todd Blanche,” he wrote.

The column appeared two days after President Trump accused Democrats of threatening Blanche and other officials with impeachment. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, the president described the threats as “extortion at the highest level” and ordered the department to look into them. On Sunday, Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash that whether Democratic lawmakers could face prison “depends on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”

Litman contends that Democrats have ample material against Blanche, citing the firing of prosecutor Maurene Comey, which he said a judge found illegal last week. But he argued that a single count centered on retaliatory prosecutions would sharpen the focus on what he views as the clearest marker of authoritarian rule.

“Yet if I were drafting the articles, I’d opt to set aside, for the time being, all those horrendous abuses in the sycophantic service of Donald Trump and advance a single count: that Blanche has wielded the power of federal prosecution to punish the president’s enemies,” he wrote.

He pointed to the cases against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, and six Democratic lawmakers who recorded a video telling troops they could refuse illegal orders.

In his view, such prosecutions violate due process and, when they punish speech, the First Amendment. The harm, he argued, lands before any judge rules, and prosecutors cannot be sued for damages — a shield rooted in the immunity courts have long given prosecutors for their official conduct. “Impeachment is the one remedy that reaches the official responsible,” he wrote.

Litman contrasted Blanche with Hegseth, who faces an impeachment vote that GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is gathering support to bring to the floor. Massie’s articles cover the Iran war and deadly strikes on boats — a case Litman called strong, but one built mostly on abuses of democratic rule rather than a break from it. The lone exception, he wrote, is a charge that Hegseth threatened Sen. Mark Kelly with prosecution over the illegal-orders video. Blanche’s department went a step further and sought indictments against Kelly and five other lawmakers.

Hegseth addressed the pending impeachment in a defiant video. “This is not about me, but of course the other side, they’re obsessed. A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democratic allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly. Just like they tried against President Trump twice,” he said.

Rep. Hank Johnson said last week that Blanche should be impeached and removed from office, and Rep. Jamie Raskin is set to chair the House Judiciary Committee, where any articles against Blanche would begin. The mechanics are already being tested elsewhere: Massie is working to force a floor vote while Republicans still hold the chamber, and a January takeover would hand the Judiciary gavel to Raskin, whose panel would be the launch point for any articles against Blanche.