Todd Blanche, the new U.S. attorney general, was sworn in on Monday, August 10, despite concerns from both sides of the aisle. The feigned concern from the Left, of course, is that Blanche will be a partisan actor.

Several things are wrong with this.

First of all, it’s hypocritical: Merrick Garland, the AG under Joe Biden, was extremely partisan, having gone after Christians and pro-lifers in the service of left-wing issues, while refusing to investigate activists for hire like Neville Roy Singham, who was in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party. Under Barack Obama, AG Eric Holder famously said, “I’m still the president’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy.” And Loretta Lynch had that infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton to supposedly discuss their grandchildren while Hillary Clinton was in hot water over her illegal email server.

Second, leftists forget (or don’t care) that the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch and therefore directly under the chief of the executive branch (i.e., the president).

Yet even after his confirmation, Blanche has had to address this ridiculous line of attack.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” this past Sunday, Blanche was asked if he would act independently of President Donald Trump. “No,” he answered, “I’m not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that.” He continued, “If President Trump says, ‘I want the Department of Justice to go after every violent criminal in this country,’ which is what he has said, what you’re saying to me is I should say, ‘No, sir, I’m not going to do it.’” Blanche concluded, “The Department of Justice, like every single department in the executive [branch], is part of the executive.”

The AG was then asked whether he would comply with Trump’s wishes, even if those wishes are illegal or unethical. Blanche responded, “This narrative that’s mostly pushed by the left and pushed by the media that the president’s going to pull me aside and ask me to do something illegal is completely a false narrative, not true, will not happen, and hasn’t happened.”

This idea of an independent executive branch department is absurd, but it’s also not new. The Left has actively tried to foster an “independent” deep state that acts as a fourth branch of government (in truth, the deep state is a weaponized leftist tool). Back in June, however, the Supreme Court, in Trump v. Slaughter, shut down this idea.

As our Douglas Andrews explained, “In striking a restorative blow for executive power, the Court … ruled that the long-espoused and mischievously applied canard that there are ‘independent’ agencies within the executive branch is just that — a canard.”

As Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out, those employed in the executive branch departments are unelected bureaucrats who must be held responsible by an elected official who answers to the people. That elected official is the president. Blanche and other executive employees, in Roberts’s phrasing, are “envoys of the president, not his equals.” In other words, this narrative should finally be put to rest, and the attorney general should not have to answer questions about working at the pleasure of the president.

Todd Blanche is a former criminal defense attorney who has promised to uphold the Justice Department’s core purposes and pursue justice. He already proved himself more effective than his predecessor, Pam Bondi, during his four months as acting attorney general. And as long as he doesn’t pull Epstein File Debacle 2.0, I think he’ll do just fine.