“‘This is What Roy Cohn Trained You For!’ – A Message of Inspiration to the U.S. Department of Justice from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche”
“This is not a time to be dismayed. This is punk rock time. This is what Joe Strummer trained you for. It is now time to go. You’re a good person. That means now more than ever.” – Henry Rollins, lead singer of Black Flag, Rollins Band, and State of Alert [1]
To the Stalwart Men and Women of the U.S. Department of Justice:
You may have noticed some procedural changes as of late. Our actions are unusual, but these are unusual times. More to the point, they are times without precedent in much of the western world. But don’t give the consequences of any of this a moment’s thought. When in doubt, remind yourself that your orders come from a man whose mentor was none other than Roy Cohn – the malevolent, monomaniacal lawyer who instilled an insatiable bloodlust and unapologetic lack of restraint in his young protégé decades before he made good on his political ambitions.
Since resuming office, President Donald Trump has wasted no time in weaponizing the Department of Justice, and by extension each and every one of you, in his quest for revenge against his perceived personal and political enemies. Much of our work has circulated more or less exclusively around bullying the mainstream media, bringing world-renowned institutes of higher learning to heel, and wielding our taxpayer-funded resources as a cudgel to cow anyone who dares speak out against us into submission.
To state the obvious, these are the tactics of a despot. Not since the pre-Revolutionary War days have we seen a leader employ his power to such a degree. But what else should we expect from the bastard offspring of a man who oversaw the House Unamerican Activities Commission right alongside Senator Joseph McCarthy, and pleaded exhaustively to impose the death penalty upon Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? Moral bankruptcy isn’t a factor when one considers an account was never opened in the first place. Remind yourself of this, and any shred of conscience shall go the way of funding for USAID, Planned Parenthood, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
This is not a time for ethical considerations. This is not a time for a moment’s reflection on your present-day actions and what they portend for the future; both for you personally, and on a global level. This is smash and grab time! This is “get while the getting is good prior to the 2026 Midterm Elections and any degree of Congressional oversight and legal repercussion” time.
This is what Roy Cohn trained you for. You’re an obsequious, complicit sack of shit beholden to the whims of President Trump-a man whose only objectives are the acquisition of wealth, power, and personal retribution for its own sake. Now more than ever.
Make peace with whatever god you worship, and brush up on Dante’s Inferno to see which Circle of Hell you are consigning yourself to in the process. While you’re at it, read Tony Kushner’s Angels in America for a fictionalized, but not inaccurate depiction of the man who molded our chief executive into the soulless entity who guides us now. He was stymying the LGBTQ+ rights movement decades before it was cool, and condemning himself to an early grave in the process. Get moving, because the chickens will come home to roost for all of us in our own unique way as well before we know it.
Sincerely,
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche
[1] Evidence of Henry Rollins saying this.