NBC News Article Rating

Will Trump's former defense lawyer protect the Justice Department from Trump?

Nov 24, 2024 View Original Article
  • Bias Rating

    10% Center

  • Reliability

    80% ReliableGood

  • Policy Leaning

    10% Center

  • Politician Portrayal

    -52% Negative

Bias Score Analysis

The A.I. bias rating includes policy and politician portrayal leanings based on the author’s tone found in the article using machine learning. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral.

Sentiments

Overall Sentiment

30% Positive

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  •   Conservative
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Bias Meter

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : He said Trump was "very hands on" and called him directly during his time in the DOJ's No. 2 position.
51% : It's real under Trump," Rosenstein said.
49% : Mueller found that Trump and his team welcomed help from Moscow during the 2016 election but did not find enough evidence to prosecute them for coordinating with Russia.
48% : I think one of the reasons Trump selected him is that he's comfortable with Blanche, he communicates with him, and that they have a relationship in which Blanche does what Trump wants him to do.
45% : Blanche, who until recently was a registered Democrat, left the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in early 2023 to represent Trump in the case.
41% : "Blanche could also be targeted on social media by the president himself if he stands up to him behind the scenes, as Trump has done to his own Justice Department appointees before.
38% : "Other Justice Department employees were cautiously optimistic that Blanche -- whom one referred to as "the closest thing to 'Team Normal' that we'll see" -- would at least prevent some of the scenarios they've been conjuring since Trump won the 2024 presidential race and nominated Gaetz.
37% : Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition team, praised Blanche and said that Trump was re-elected by the American people to "change the status quo in Washington.
37% : They are concerned that Blanche won't stand up to Trump, who throughout his first term repeatedly flouted post-Watergate restrictions on contacts between the Justice Department and the White House that are in place to stop presidents from using federal law enforcement to target their political enemies.
37% : "When Trump first took office in 2017, he didn't know his deputy attorney general well, and their relationship immediately became vital and volatile.
32% : "I think the ethos and the culture that he was brought up in in the U.S. attorney's office is the antithesis of how Trump uses the criminal justice system, which is that it should do what he wants, rewards his friends and punishes his enemies.
29% : Trump was ultimately convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and became the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
29% : The decision infuriated Trump, who berated Sessions and Rosenstein for it.
26% : Mueller reached no conclusion about whether Trump had obstructed justice.
25% : Some current and former DOJ officials say Blanche's close relationship and record of legal work with Trump has raised concerns.
22% : Some current DOJ officials hope that Blanche, who as deputy attorney general will oversee day-to-day operations in the department if confirmed, can help prevent a worst-case scenario: Trump wielding federal law enforcement as a cudgel against his political enemies.
17% : Rod Rosenstein, a career federal prosecutor with a reputation for being nonpartisan, chose FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as a special counsel after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the bureau's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
12% : That person anticipated that Blanche would be a moderate relative to Gaetz, and despite his rapport with Trump would be unlikely to carry out an illegal order.
5% : Hours later, though, Trump nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a longtime loyalist who backed the former president's lies about the 2020 election and said "horrible" people in the department were trying to make names for themselves by "going after Donald Trump and weaponizing our legal system.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.

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