The Democratic lawyer who helped fund the infamous Steele dossier, the document the FBI used to investigate Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and that a special counsel later found could not be corroborated, went on cable television Tuesday to declare acting Attorney General Todd Blanche a "threat to democracy." Marc Elias made the remarks on MSNBC's "The Weeknight," the Daily Caller reported, calling Blanche "an unusually good liar" and warning that his appointment signals dark days ahead.
The timing is worth noting. President Trump named Blanche acting Attorney General on Thursday after announcing that Pam Bondi would be "transitioning to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector." Trump has not yet nominated a permanent replacement. Blanche had barely settled into the role before Elias took to the airwaves to sound the alarm.
That Elias, of all people, is lecturing the country about honesty and democratic norms deserves more than a passing mention. His track record is central to understanding why his warnings ring hollow.
Elias, who has represented Democratic Party interests in election-related legal battles for years, was involved in creating the Steele dossier during his time at the Perkins Coie law firm. That dossier became a key source for the FBI's investigation into allegations that Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia, allegations that included wiretaps of Trump associate Carter Page and others tied to the campaign.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was named special counsel to investigate those allegations. He found no evidence Trump's campaign colluded with Russia.
Then came the Durham report. Special Counsel John Durham released his findings on May 15, 2023, examining the origins of the FBI investigation. His conclusion: the FBI "did not and could not corroborate" the claims from the now-discredited dossier. The very document Elias helped bring into existence, the document that consumed years of national attention, fueled an impeachment effort, and cast a shadow over an entire presidency, was baseless from the start.
Bondi's tenure as attorney general drew its own controversies, including sharp criticism from Rep. Thomas Massie over Epstein document redactions and broader questions about transparency at the Justice Department.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard went further in July, releasing documents and a memo detailing what she called a "years-long coup" against Trump after he defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. The intelligence community's own records, in other words, painted a picture of institutional abuse, not the noble defense of democracy that Elias now claims to champion.
On "The Weeknight," hosted by Symone Sanders-Townsend, Elias laid out his case against Blanche in characteristically dramatic fashion:
"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."
He escalated from there. Elias described the current moment in terms that would make any casual viewer think the republic was in its final hours:
"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."
A dictator. Sycophants. A madman. This from the lawyer whose own handiwork, the Steele dossier, was used by federal agencies to surveil American citizens connected to a presidential campaign. If anyone understands how the power of the state can be weaponized against political adversaries, it should be Marc Elias. He was on the funding end of it.
The broader shakeup at the Justice Department has raised questions well beyond Elias's concerns. Reports earlier this year suggested Trump weighed firing Bondi over the Epstein files fallout, a saga that underscored the internal tensions driving personnel changes at DOJ.
Elias's complaints centered partly on the administration's treatment of Justice Department personnel. In 2025, the administration fired DOJ staff 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.
Sanders-Townsend offered her own defense of the fired prosecutors during the segment:
"These prosecutors are career individuals. They 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 echoed that framing, insisting the targeted employees were simply following orders:
"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 implication was clear: these were innocent civil servants, not political actors.
But that framing sidesteps an obvious question. If the underlying investigations were built on a foundation as shaky as the Steele dossier, the very document Elias helped create, then the entire apparatus that assigned those prosecutors deserves scrutiny. The Durham report already established that the FBI's original investigation lacked a sound basis. The question isn't just whether individual lawyers were "following orders." It's whether the orders themselves were legitimate.
Meanwhile, acting AG Blanche has signaled he intends to challenge the media's framing of these issues head-on. The Daily Caller reported that Blanche rebuked reporters during a Tuesday press conference, pushing back on what he described as the media's double standard on political prosecutions.
That posture clearly unsettles Elias, who declared flatly: "It's a very, very, very dangerous day in democracy here."
Elias's record extends beyond the dossier. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, he sought to overturn two narrow election victories by Republicans in races for seats in the House of Representatives. The man now warning about threats to democracy has a documented history of trying to reverse election outcomes that didn't go his party's way.
This is the broader pattern that conservative voters recognize and that mainstream media coverage routinely ignores. The same operatives who spent years weaponizing federal law enforcement against a sitting president, using opposition research dressed up as intelligence, now present themselves as guardians of the rule of law. The same lawyer who funded a fabricated dossier now accuses the acting attorney general of being "an unusually good liar."
The personnel changes at DOJ, including reports of pressure on FBI Director Kash Patel following the Bondi shakeup, reflect an administration determined to clean house at agencies that spent years pursuing investigations now widely regarded as politically motivated.
Elias's fear of Blanche is telling. He isn't afraid of incompetence. He's afraid of accountability, the kind that might finally reach the people who set the Russia investigation in motion and never answered for it. When the man who helped fabricate the predicate for the most consequential political investigation in modern American history says the new attorney general is "dangerous," perhaps the rest of us should ask: dangerous to whom?
The Clinton-era political machinery that Elias represents has faced renewed scrutiny on multiple fronts, including the Benghazi suspect's recent extradition to face murder charges, a case in which Bondi herself invoked Clinton's record.
Open questions remain. Trump has not nominated a permanent attorney general to replace Bondi. How long Blanche will serve in an acting capacity, and what he intends to do with the role, is unclear. Whether additional DOJ personnel face consequences for their involvement in the Trump-era investigations is an open matter.
But one thing is not ambiguous. Marc Elias, the lawyer whose work product was used to justify federal surveillance of American citizens and whose dossier was found by two separate investigations to be uncorroborated and discredited, has no standing to lecture anyone about honesty, democratic norms, or the proper use of government power.
When the architects of a discredited investigation start calling the new sheriff "dangerous," it usually means the new sheriff is looking in the right places.
