Todd Blanche’s Bid To Join Elite Private Washington Club Hits Resistance

Some members of one of Washington’s most exclusive clubs have a message for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche: We don’t want you.

Around February last year, Blanche started the rigorous process to join the Metropolitan Club, which is one of Washington’s oldest private clubs and claims D.C. royalty as members. But at least six members have written to the Met Club’s board of directors to object to Blanche’s joining, saying he’s too polarizing and has politicized the Justice Department, according to two current members who have seen or been told about the letters.

“He is targeting a lot of people, and the Justice Department is targeting a lot of the members of the club, like judges, nonprofit organizations and universities,” said one member, who like others for this item was granted anonymity because the Met Club prohibits its associates from speaking to the media about internal business.

Outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for example — whom the DOJ was investigating as part of a probe into renovations at the central bank — is a member of the club. The Justice Department dropped its criminal investigation into Powell and the Federal Reserve on Friday.

A second Met Club member, who told POLITICO they’ve penned a letter to the Met’s leadership urging them to reject Blanche, called the acting DOJ leader’s comments essentially supporting President Donald Trump’s use of the DOJ to go after his perceived enemies “pretty startling” and noted that the Met Club has current and former judges among its ranks who could take offense.

“I am disappointed that the club’s standards are slipping on so many levels and can only hope that the club leadership will recover, grab the rudder and set us on a smooth sail once again,” said a third Met Club member opposed to Blanche’s membership. Five members of the club have confirmed that Blanche is seeking entry into the club.

Justin Peterson, the president of the Met Club and the managing partner of the PR and lobbying firm DCI Group, didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Met Club also didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The Trump administration is at war with most American institutions, and so the people who represent those institutions, many of them are at the club,” the first club member added. “And the club is the kind of place where you want to be able to relax and have a congenial conversation. But if he’s in there, given that the Justice Department is so combative and aggressive, this is not the kind of tone that we want.”

Blanche didn’t respond to a request for comment. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment, saying it was a personal matter.

The membership list of the Met Club is like a who’s who of D.C. aristocracy that transcends partisanship affiliations. Founded in the 1860s by several Treasury officials, it has had at least six U.S. presidents, numerous Cabinet members including Henry Kissinger and Dean Acheson, as well as senators and governors as members. In a New York Times story from 1983, it was derided as a “Moose Lodge for the powerful” that, at the time, had a five-year waiting list.

It’s also not without controversy. In 1961, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy — and several other members — resigned from the Met Club because it discriminated against Blacks and only allowed Black members beginning in 1972. It banned women from joining as members until 1988.

The Met Club’s membership application requires two sponsors and at least eight supportive letters from current members, and many people who go through the process gain entry, although it can take at least a year. But there have been notable rejections, including Bush-era Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was reportedly rejected from trying to get into the club.

Blanche’s two main sponsors could also have business before the Justice Department. He’s sponsored by Bill Burck, global co-managing partner of the law firm Quinn Emanuel and co-chair of a practice focused on government investigations and white collar defense, and James M. McDonald, a litigation partner at Sullivan and Cromwell who co-heads the firm’s securities and commodities investigations practice, according to two club members.

Burck and Blanche have been friends for almost 25 years. They met as colleagues starting their careers in the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, according to a person who knows Burck.

Burck and McDonald declined to comment.

Blanche’s other letters of support mostly come from lawyers, according to one of the members.