President Donald Trump said that the people who heckled and protested against him at a D.C. restaurant last week “should be in jail.” Trump’s Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal criminal defense lawyer for Trump, suggested that the protestors — who later identified themselves as members of CODEPINK and chanted “Free D.C., Free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time” — might have committed a crime and could face a RICO charge.
When Blanche appeared on CNN, host Kaitlin Collins asked, “As you know, RICO has been used to go after Al-Qaeda, MS-13, the Gambino family, how does something like that protest fall under a RICO charge?”
Blanche replied: “That’s not what we use RICO for only. RICO is available to all kinds of organizations committing crimes and committing wrongful acts, not just organized crime, ISIS or terrorist organizations.”
He added: “So is it sheer happenstance that individuals show up at a restaurant where the president is trying to enjoy dinner in Washington, D.C. and accost him with vile words and vile anger?”
Blanche says there is a chance that the gathering was random but “if it was an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States, there’s a potential investigation there.”
Deputy AG Blanche: RICO is available to all kinds of organizations committing crimes and committing wrongful acts… So is it sheer happenstance that individuals show up at a restaurant where the president is trying to enjoy dinner and accost him with vile words?
Collins: They… pic.twitter.com/T5gom2HLm4
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 17, 2025
When Collins responded “But were they inflicting harm, terror or damage by protesting the President of the United States? I mean, they were just shouting basically, in his vicinity,” Blanche replied, “So you’re asking whether there’s damage done by four individuals screaming and yelling at the President of our United States while he’s trying to have dinner? That can’t be a serious question.”
Collins replied: “People can protest the president.” She added, “And there were supporters outside as well.”
U.S. Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY), a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Manhattan who prosecuted Russian organized crime figures and Genovese crime family mobsters, responded to Blanche’s comments.
Goldman wrote: “I charged RICO cases. Yelling at the President is not a racketeering act and cannot be the basis for a criminal charge.” The Congressman added: “@DAGToddBlanche knows better. He is corrupting the DOJ with ridiculous comments like this.”