Blanche says he will ‘follow the law’ on ICE agents at polls but won’t pledge not to deploy them

In his confirmation hearing for attorney general Wednesday, Todd Blanche claimed he would “follow the law” on sending armed federal agents to voting sites but pointedly stopped short of pledging not to deploy them.

Blanche, the current acting attorney general and one of President Donald Trump’s former personal defense attorneys, had previously endorsed deploying agents to the polls in response to questions from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

“Since the Civil War … federal law has made it clear that the president does not have the authority to deploy armed federal officials to election sites. Will you commit to following clear federal law and not deploy federal agents to polling locations?” the senator asked Blanche.

“I will commit to following the law, senator, of course,” Blanche replied. 

Klobuchar pressed him further, asking whether following the law includes “not deploying federal agents to polling places?”

“I will absolutely follow the law, no matter whatever it includes, so, yes,” he answered.

When Klobuchar asked whether Blanche understood why eligible voters could be concerned or intimidated by armed federal law enforcement officers at the polls, Blanche did not answer. He instead claimed he was “not aware of armed agents being at polling places.” 

“I’m not aware of that concern, but I will tell you we will follow the law,” he said.

In addition to dodging that question, Blanche also did not answer her queries on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ongoing effort to force states to hand over sensitive voting registration records to the federal government and on the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to condition anti-terrorism and disaster grants on states implementing anti-voting policies.

During the hearing, Blanche also offered an endorsement of the SAVE America Act, a massive anti-voting bill that Trump has repeatedly pressured Congress to pass. It currently remains stalled in the Senate.

In a rambling question, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) complained that many states had refused to hand over their unredacted voter rolls to the DOJ and courts had repeatedly sided with the states. That made it “virtually impossible to enforce the law prohibiting noncitizen voting in federal elections,” he said. 

“In your view, would the SAVE America Act give the Department of Justice clear authority in its efforts to protect the sanctity and security of those elections?” Lee asked.

“Yes, absolutely,” Blanche answered.

Blanche’s comments come at a moment when the Trump administration is attacking elections on multiple fronts and prominent MAGA figures have called on Trump to station federal immigration agents or National Guard personnel at voting sites during the upcoming midterms. Such a deployment would clearly be meant to intimidate voters and poll workers and influence election outcomes. The White House and senior Trump officials have refused to rule out the tactic.

Under federal law, it is a crime to deploy “any troops or armed men” to any polling place unless “such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States” or for anyone in the U.S. military to interfere in elections in any way.

States also have strict laws prohibiting voter intimidation, while several also have laws that would likely bar armed federal agents from patrolling polling places, drop-box locations or election facilities.

Despite those legal restraints, Blanche, in a norm-shattering appearance at a conservative conference in March, supported using agents to patrol voting sites and downplayed concerns that their presence could intimidate eligible voters.

“Why is there objection to sending [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] officers to polling places?” Blanche said in a stage interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference. 

“Illegals can’t vote. It doesn’t make any sense,” he added.

Blanche made those comments before becoming acting attorney general following Trump’s dismissal of Attorney General Pam Bondi in April.

Concerns about troops being deployed to the polls aren’t purely speculative. Last month, two ICE agents confronted a poll worker at a voting site in Syracuse, New York, as she was helping carry out the state’s recent primary elections.

The poll worker told Democracy Docket that, during the confrontation, she did not know whether the agents were armed because they were wearing coats that covered their waist areas.

ICE also recently reversed its position and told a federal judge that it may have thousands of documents relevant to Democrats’ demand for any information on the Trump administration’s possible plans to deploy immigration agents at the polls this fall.

Previously, the agency told the judge it “found no responsive records” to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documentation.

This story has been updated with additional information.