PARIS (AP) — Marseille's promising start to the French league season has given its demanding fans hope of a sustained title challenge.
Under new coach Roberto De Zerbi, Marseille’s revamped squad is in second place behind leader Paris Saint-Germain and scoring freely, with many attributing the impressive early performances to a well-planned recruitment strategy.
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FILE - Getafe's Mason Greenwood reacts after coming on late as substitute to make his debut during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Getafe and Osasuna at the Coliseum stadium in Getafe, Spain, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Breton, File)
FILE - Brentford's Neal Maupay gestures during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Brentford at the Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)
FILE - Brighton's head coach Roberto De Zerbi shouts to his players from the sideline during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Brighton and Hove at Anfield Stadium in Liverpool, England, on March 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
FILE - Juventus' Adrien Rabiot controls the ball during the Serie A soccer match against Inter Milan at the San Siro Stadium, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)
The signings have been shrewd, although not to everyone's liking. The most talked-about was Mason Greenwood.
The 22-year-old forward, previously at Manchester United, came to Marseille amid controversy two years after his arrest in 2022 on charges of attempted rape, controlling and coercive behaviour and assault.
The case was dropped in 2023. During his loan spell at Getafe last season, the Spanish club filed a complaint after Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham allegedly called Greenwood a “rapist” during a game.
Since joining Marseille, Greenwood has made headlines on the field and is the league's top scorer with five goals in four league matches.
Marseille is unbeaten and, with 12 goals, has the second-best tally behind PSG's 16.
Another major coup was the acquisition of Adrien Rabiot from Italian giant Juventus earlier this week.
The dynamic France midfielder, who made his name at PSG, brings big-game experience and versatility. He was a free agent after declining to extend his contract with Juventus.
Aged 29, Rabiot could emerge as the key player if Marseille pushes for the title. He brings invaluable leadership qualities to a young-looking team, having won six French titles with PSG and one Italian Serie A crown with Juventus.
Rabiot made more than 200 appearances for Juve and has 48 caps for France, scoring for Les Bleus at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He is a first-team regular under national coach Didier Deschamps.
Rabiot, who grew up in the suburbs of Paris and came through PSG’s youth academy, was once a fan favorite in the French capital. However, his move to Juventus in 2019, after a falling out with the club, left a bitter taste with PSG supporters.
Now that he’s joined their fierce rival, Marseille, it has only added to the animosity.
Marseille also bolstered its squad with several players with English Premier League experience. Forwards Neal Maupay, winger Jonathan Rowe and powerful midfielder Pierre-Emile Højbjerg have all joined, adding depth and energy.
Højbjerg has made an immediate impact, providing stability in midfield, and should form an impressive partnership with Rabiot. The Denmark international's energetic style — honed from more than 250 Premier League games with Southampton and Tottenham — fits seamlessly into De Zerbi’s high-intensity, fast-paced style of play.
Maupay burst onto the scene as a powerful 16-year-old with French side Nice, where he stood out for a remarkable ability to play with his back to goal at such a young age.
The bustling forward then made a name — and sometimes a feisty reputation — with Brighton in the Premier League. At 28, he is entering his prime years. Likewise Højbjerg, who is 29.
De Zerbi brings with him experience of a highly competitive, demanding and scrutinized Premier League, where he impressed with his tactical innovations.
Marseille's ability to sign him should not be understated since big European clubs — including Liverpool when it was seeking a replacement for Jürgen Klopp — were reportedly looking at him.
With no European competition this season, Marseille can fully focus on ending its long French title drought, which stretches back to 2010.
To win a 10th league crown, however, Marseille may have to beat PSG. That could prove realistic this season, since the defending champion lacks its usual firepower following the departure of Kylian Mbappé to Real Madrid.
Marseille and PSG face off on Oct. 27 at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome.
Before that there's another important game coming up, away to Lyon on Sunday. Marseille's fans are banned from going following clashes between rival fans in recent seasons.
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AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed to this report.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Getafe's Mason Greenwood reacts after coming on late as substitute to make his debut during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Getafe and Osasuna at the Coliseum stadium in Getafe, Spain, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Breton, File)
FILE - Brentford's Neal Maupay gestures during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Brentford at the Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)
FILE - Brighton's head coach Roberto De Zerbi shouts to his players from the sideline during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Brighton and Hove at Anfield Stadium in Liverpool, England, on March 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)
FILE - Juventus' Adrien Rabiot controls the ball during the Serie A soccer match against Inter Milan at the San Siro Stadium, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — When acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed off on a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate President Donald Trump's allies for alleged political prosecution, he may have pleased his boss.
But the eyebrow-raising move — the latest in his push to prove his loyalty to Trump — has agitated the same Republican lawmakers if he is nominated for the permanent job.
Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a succession of splashy steps the Justice Department has taken under his watch since he took the position on an acting basis last month, including an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, has left no doubt about the impression he’s hoping to make on the president who appointed him.
The fund in particular has put Blanche at the center of a Republican firestorm at a time when he aims to establish himself as the perfect person for the job for the remainder of Trump’s term. And it sharpened concerns from Democrats and other Blanche critics that he has not shed his mantle as the president’s personal attorney.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, said in a statement.
A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump's defense team, including during the Republican's hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.
He was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job, then was elevated last month after Trump ousted Pam Bondi.
Now he finds himself the latest Trump-appointed attorney general to simultaneously confront expectations from subordinates to uphold institutional norms and demands from the president to do his bidding.
Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was forced out after the 2018 midterms after infuriating the president over his recusal from an investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign. Another, William Barr, resigned after their relationship fizzled over Barr's refusal to back Trump's baseless claims of massive election fraud. Bondi was removed after struggling to bring successful prosecutions against Trump's political opponents.
Two weeks after becoming acting attorney general, Blanche announced the appointment of Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to a special position inside the department. He'll oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.
“At some point, at the right time, that will be made public and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade," Blanche told Fox News.
Prior government reviews of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, a centerpiece of the current conspiracy investigation, have failed to produce criminal charges against senior officials or evidence of criminal conduct by them. It's not clear what, if any, new information the continuing investigation has developed.
The Justice Department also last month obtained an indictment charging Comey, a Trump foe whose prosecution the president has long called for, with threatening Trump through a social media photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47" — a case legal experts say will be challenging for prosecutors. Comey has said he wouldn't be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments.
In other moves, Blanche announced an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that has been the target of conservative outrage, with misleading donors about its activities, and has publicly defended a Justice Department crackdown on leaks to the news media, including subpoenas to reporters.
Arguably the most audacious demonstration of loyalty to Trump came this week when the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who feel they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted, coupled with a guarantee of immunity from tax audits for Trump and his eldest sons.
As Republican concerns grew, Blanche held a tense meeting with GOP lawmakers Thursday. Shortly afterward, Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies.
Blanche, who defended the fund at a congressional hearing this week, has said anyone who believes they've been persecuted can apply for compensation regardless of political affiliation. But the fund has been widely understood as a boon to Trump allies investigated during the Biden administration.
“It’s pretty clear that he’s not the attorney general for the United States as much as he's the attorney general for President Trump,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and senior Justice Department official in the 1980s. He said Blanche would get an A+ if report cards were issued for fealty to Trump.
David Laufman, a former chief of staff to the deputy attorney general in President George W. Bush's administration, said that rather than protecting the Justice Department's independence, Blanche has been a “willing and ardent accomplice for carrying out any partisan or corrupt scheme the White House may devise.”
Blanche’s supporters dismiss the suggestion he is trying to curry favor with Trump to secure the permanent job.
“What he is doing is he is seeking justice based on facts and the law,” said Jay Town, who served as a U.S. attorney in Alabama during the first Trump administration. “And I don’t think that will ever change about him, whether he is the attorney general going forward or doesn’t spend another day in the administration. He is an honorable man and anybody that knows him knows that to be true.”
Blanche also says he is not angling to keep his job or feeling pressure to placate Trump.
He has told reporters he would be honored to be nominated but, "if he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ I don’t have any goals or aspirations beyond that.”
In recent days, he's functioned as the fund's public face and most visible defender, a role consistent with his comfort in the spotlight. He sometimes holds multiple press conferences a week and grants interviews to a variety of news outlets, a contrast to Bondi, who largely stuck to Fox News appearances.
His defenders say his experience as a federal prosecutor has made him a more sophisticated communicator for the department than Bondi, but his statements have at times invited backlash, including his refusal to rule out that violent Jan. 6 rioters could be eligible for payouts.
Though Blanche will appoint the five commissioners tasked with processing claims, his precise role in the fund’s implementation is unclear. He told CNN it was developed through negotiations with Trump’s private lawyers, not him.
For some Democrats, that's a difference without a distinction.
“Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told Blanche during a combative exchange in the Senate hearing, "and that's the whole problem."
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
