Marc Elias, lawyer behind the discredited Steele dossier, says he fears Bondi's replacement at DOJ

Marc Elias, the Democratic attorney who helped fund the now-debunked Steele dossier, went on cable television this week to declare that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is "dangerous" and represents a dire threat to democracy. The real question is why anyone still hands Elias a microphone as though his credibility survived the Russia collusion fiasco intact.

Elias appeared on MSNBC's "The Weeknight" with host Symone Sanders-Townsend shortly after Blanche held a combative Tuesday press conference, the Daily Caller reported. At that press conference, Blanche rebuked what he described as the media's double standard on political prosecutions, years of "sitting there" while Democrats targeted President Donald Trump, "his family, his administration, the agents that protected him," and more.

Elias's response was not to engage the substance. It was to label Blanche a liar and escalate the rhetoric into territory that would make even seasoned partisans blink.

What Elias said, and what he didn't address

Sanders-Townsend set the table by defending the prosecutors Blanche had criticized, calling them "career individuals" who "were assigned to this case, a case that was opened because of questionable conduct by the president of the United States that resulted in a basis for an investigation." Elias picked up from there and ran with it, as the Daily Caller detailed:

"Look, Todd Blanche is dangerous because he's an unusually good liar. I mean, he is able to lie and make it sound entirely reasonable."

Note the construction. Elias did not point to a specific false statement. He did not cite a particular claim Blanche made at the press conference and demonstrate it was wrong. He simply asserted that Blanche's ability to "sound entirely reasonable" is itself proof of danger. That is not legal analysis. It is the argument of a man who cannot win on the merits and knows it.

Elias continued by defending the Justice Department personnel who worked on Trump-related investigations, arguing they were line prosecutors following orders. He told Sanders-Townsend:

"I mean, as you point out, the prosecutors who he is criticizing, these are, these were line prosecutors who were assigned by their boss to do tasks that they were given."

He added that many of them "were not even, like, in court lawyers. They were just lawyers who were processing evidence or reviewing documents." The framing was clear: these were mere functionaries, not political actors. But that framing conveniently ignores the larger institutional machinery those functionaries served, and the record of that machinery's failures.

The dossier, the probe, and the record Elias would rather forget

Elias is not some disinterested observer of Justice Department politics. He was directly involved in creating the Steele dossier during his time at the Perkins Coie law firm. That dossier, a collection of unverified opposition research alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, became the foundation for one of the most consequential federal investigations in modern American history.

The FBI opened an investigation into allegations that the 2016 Trump campaign engaged in election interference with Russia. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was named special counsel to dig deeper. He eventually found no evidence that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia.

Then came the reckoning. Special Counsel John Durham released a report on May 15, 2023, examining the origins of that FBI investigation. His conclusion: the FBI "did not and could not corroborate" the claims from the dossier. The entire predicate for years of investigation, media frenzy, and political damage rested on material that fell apart under scrutiny, material Elias helped bring into existence.

That history matters when evaluating Elias's current warnings about threats to democracy. The man who helped finance discredited opposition research that fueled wiretaps of Trump associate Carter Page and others tied to the 2016 campaign now wants the public to believe that the real danger is a new acting attorney general who sounds too "reasonable."

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard added another layer to this record in July, releasing documents and a memo detailing what she called a "years-long coup" against Trump after he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. Reasonable people can debate the word "coup," but the underlying facts, an investigation launched on unverifiable opposition research, sustained for years, and ultimately yielding no collusion finding, are not in dispute. The pattern of Democratic legal figures facing scrutiny for their own conduct while loudly accusing others of abusing power has become familiar enough to have its own genre.

Blanche steps in as Bondi departs

President Trump named Blanche acting attorney general on Thursday, after announcing that Attorney General Pam Bondi would be "transitioning to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector." The transition itself was orderly. There was no firing, no drama, just a personnel change at the top of the Justice Department.

But for Elias and his allies, the appointment was cause for alarm. And the alarm was not subtle. Elias told Sanders-Townsend that it was "a very, very, very dangerous day in democracy here," then escalated further:

"It is not just that we have a madman conducting our foreign policy. We have a dictator surrounded by sycophants who are using the power of the state, the power of the federal government to target his political opponents and his political adversaries. And as we head towards elections, we should just expect a lot more of this."

"Madman." "Dictator." "Sycophants." This is the language Elias chose on national television. It is not the language of a lawyer making a careful case. It is the language of a political operative trying to pre-delegitimize an administration's law enforcement decisions before they even happen.

On multiple occasions in 2025, the administration fired Justice Department personnel who had worked on the investigations of Trump led by special counsel Jack Smith during the Biden administration. Smith had secured indictments over Trump's handling of classified materials and his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election. Those cases were dismissed after Trump won the 2024 election. The firings were a direct response to what the administration viewed as politically motivated prosecutions, the same kind of double standard Blanche called out at his press conference.

The credibility gap

Elias has extensively represented Democratic Party interests in election-related legal battles. After the 2020 election, he sought to overturn two narrow Republican victories in House races. His track record is not that of a neutral legal commentator; it is that of a committed partisan who has spent years using the legal system to advance Democratic objectives.

None of that disqualifies him from having opinions. But it does mean his opinions arrive with baggage, particularly when the subject is whether the Justice Department is being weaponized for political purposes. Elias helped set the template for exactly that kind of weaponization. The dossier he helped fund triggered an FBI investigation that the Durham report found lacked adequate predication. The wiretaps that followed swept up American citizens associated with a presidential campaign. The political fallout consumed years of national attention.

Now Elias warns that Blanche, a former defense attorney who represented Trump in court, is the one who poses a threat. The argument boils down to this: when Democrats used the Justice Department's machinery against Trump, it was justified. When the current administration holds accountable those who participated in that effort, it is authoritarianism. That is not a principle. It is a preference dressed up as one.

The broader landscape of Democratic figures facing DOJ scrutiny only sharpens the contrast. When the legal system turns its attention toward their side of the aisle, the same voices that cheered every Trump indictment suddenly discover deep concerns about prosecutorial overreach.

Sanders-Townsend's defense of the prosecutors as "career individuals" assigned to a case deserves a moment of scrutiny as well. Career status does not confer immunity from accountability. If career prosecutors participated in investigations built on material that "did not and could not" be corroborated, the question of how that happened, and who should answer for it, is legitimate. Dismissing the question by invoking "career" credentials is a dodge, not an answer.

The Trump administration has also faced resistance from federal courts blocking various enforcement actions, a reminder that institutional pushback runs in multiple directions. But the specific complaint Elias raised, that Blanche is dangerous because he is persuasive, reveals more about Elias's position than about Blanche's character.

If your opponent's greatest sin is sounding reasonable, perhaps the problem is not your opponent.

What accountability actually looks like

The administration's moves at the Justice Department, the personnel changes, the firings, the appointment of Blanche, represent an attempt to restore accountability to an institution that spent years pursuing investigations built on shaky foundations. Whether every specific decision proves wise remains to be seen. But the principle that a department which launched probes based on unverifiable opposition research should face a reckoning is not authoritarian. It is common sense.

Elias and his allies have every right to criticize. But criticism lands differently when it comes from the man whose work product helped trigger the very abuses now under review. The ongoing reshuffling of federal legal leadership across the country reflects an administration determined to install people who share its enforcement priorities. That is how every administration operates. The difference is that this one is doing it after years of watching the prior machinery target a sitting and former president.

Elias called it a dangerous day for democracy. The people who lived through years of investigations launched on fabricated research might use a different word: overdue.