Todd Blanche appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and, when pressed about the prospect of federal agents stationed at polling places, assured the assembled senators that he would “follow the law.” The room, we are told, did not immediately burst into relieved applause. This shows remarkable restraint on the part of the Senate.
Now, “I will follow the law” is a perfectly fine thing to say if you are, for instance, a new driver, a child who has just discovered the candy aisle, or a raccoon being explained the concept of a trash lid. For a nominee to the highest law enforcement office in the country, it lands somewhere between a campaign promise and a breakfast order. Yes, I’ll have the law. And could you make sure it’s actually the law this time? Last week they brought me something else entirely.
The confirmation process, for those keeping score, works as follows: the nominee sits before people with gavels, the people with gavels ask whether the nominee plans to do the job as the job was designed, the nominee confirms this intention, and everyone writes it down as if the writing will be the part that makes it binding. It is a ceremony of mutual reassurance, like two people on a first date agreeing they are both looking for something serious.
The specific question — federal agents at polling sites — is not an abstraction. It is a deed with a direction. And the answer “I’ll follow the law” is, in that context, less a commitment than a koan. The law, after all, is exactly what the Attorney General’s Office interprets. Telling the Senate you will follow the law while sitting in the chair that decides what the law means is a bit like a cartographer promising to follow the map he is currently drawing.
The senators seemed pleased. The nominee seemed pleased to testify. The hearing, one imagines, will be filed under “oversight.” Which is either the thing that prevents abuses of power or a very good description of how they happen.