Washington — Todd Blanche’s bid to become attorney general moved one step closer to a full Senate vote Tuesday, after the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department.
The Republican-controlled committee approved Blanche’s nomination in a 12-10 party-line vote. Blanche, who is serving as acting attorney general, secured crucial backing from GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina after addressing their concerns about a proposed $1.8 billion compensation fund for people who claimed they were victims of government “weaponization.”
Questions from Cornyn and Tillis about that fund, along with a broader arrangement shielding the president from certain tax audits, had put Blanche’s confirmation path at risk. But after weeks of talks with the senators, Blanche issued a new order late Sunday withdrawing his earlier directive that established the “anti-weaponization” fund. The order also narrowed the scope of the tax-related immunity provision, stating that it applies only to possible audits of prior-year tax returns and is limited to Mr. Trump, his two eldest sons and the Trump Organization.
Blanche’s latest order does not change the underlying terms of the settlement agreement that Mr. Trump reached with the IRS in May, which resolved a civil lawsuit tied to the leak of his tax records by a former government contractor. Mr. Trump has continued to endorse the proposed “anti-weaponization” fund and warned Saturday that he could bring it back if Cornyn and Tillis moved against Blanche’s attorney general nomination.
Even so, Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement Monday that they were “pleased” Blanche had formalized an order ending the fund. They added that the Justice Department’s clarification on the limits of the tax immunity agreement helped resolve concerns raised by several Republican senators.
“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn and Tillis said.
During the Judiciary Committee hearing, both senators defended the conditions they set for supporting Blanche and pointed to the assurances they said they had obtained from the Justice Department.
“Given this agreement with Mr. Blanche, I expect the department to live up to this in future litigation,” Cornyn said. He added that his support for moving the nomination forward “goes beyond this document,” arguing that the Justice Department needs “a stabilizing force” and that Blanche should be given the chance to serve in that role.
The department, he said, “does not need a temporary, unconfirmed nominee as our nation’s top law enforcement officer.”
With Blanche’s nomination for attorney general advancing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it heads to the full Senate for a vote. A simple majority is needed to confirm him to the post.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, thanked Cornyn and Tillis for working with the Justice Department to address concerns about Mr. Trump’s immunity deal with the IRS and the “anti-weaponization” fund.
“It’s just common sense, what Tillis and Cornyn are asking out of the executive branch of government,” he said, adding “it’s a crime that it took so long” to secure clarifications on the limits of the tax deal.
Grassley said that since Blanche took the helm of the Justice Department in a temporary capacity, it has “thrived under his leadership.”
“Today, I’m not only voting to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination, I’m voting for the safety of the American people,” he said.
But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said Blanche “has no business” leading the Justice Department, and he accused the acting attorney general of attempting to reshape the department by firing longtime officials and replacing them “with unqualified MAGA loyalists who will rubber-stamp President Trump’s corruption.”
“His word is not enough for most, not even for some of my Republican friends. Even his word under oath is not credible enough,” Durbin said, highlighting demands from senators that Blanche commit his promises to writing.
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The Illinois Democrat stressed that Blanche’s new orders regarding the settlement agreement between Mr. Trump and the IRS are not signed by the parties — which include the president’s two oldest sons and the Trump Organization — and are therefore “unenforceable.” The president and his sons could still sue to enforce the original terms of the deal, and the “anti-weaponization” fund can be revived shortly after Blanche is confirmed, Durbin warned.
“To my Republican colleagues, you gave Mr. Blanche the benefit of the doubt when you supported his nomination to be deputy attorney general,” he said. “Seventeen months later, there is no doubt where his loyalty will lie.”
Blanche has been serving as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi was removed as the nation’s top law enforcement officer in April. Mr. Trump nominated Blanche for attorney general in June.
A former personal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump, Blanche came under scrutiny from members of the Judiciary Committee over the Justice Department’s handling of the release of files related to the federal investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his meeting last year with Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and the department’s settlement with Mr. Trump to resolve his civil lawsuit against the IRS.
That deal included the creation of the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that would provide payments to people who claimed they were targeted by the federal government for political reasons. The Justice Department also had agreed to grant Mr. Trump immunity from IRS audits and investigations related to prior tax returns.
Blanche had said before that the Justice Department is not moving forward with the “anti-weaponization” program, but until Sunday, he declined to confirm in writing that it was dead, raising questions as to whether it could be revived in a different form.
When pressed by senators during his confirmation hearing about the status of the fund, Blanche said it’s “dead” and “doesn’t exist anymore.” But in written responses to senators, he declined to provide information about discussions within the Justice Department about the program.
With Republicans controlling 12 of the 22 seats on the Judiciary Committee, Cornyn and Tillis were key votes for Blanche to secure.
Tillis said earlier this month that Blanche needed to meet with survivors of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation before he voted to advance his nomination out of the Judiciary Committee. The acting attorney general met with a group of survivors at the Justice Department and said the meeting was “productive.”
But the group continued to urge Cornyn and Tillis to vote against Blanche’s nomination, saying in a letter to the senators that during their meeting with the acting attorney general, he “showed no remorse for the horrific release of materials that exposed survivors’ identities and images.” They also said he “gave no indication that he believed there were investigative leads worth pursuing, or that he intended to seek accountability beyond Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Blanche was serving as deputy attorney general when the Justice Department released more than 3 million pages of documents from its investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. The files’ disclosure was required under a federal law called the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
But some of the records contained survivors’ unredacted names and personal information. Blanche acknowledged “mistakes” were made by the Justice Department in its failure to shield survivors’ information and said the administration worked to rectify them, including by swiftly taking documents down.
Blanche also conducted a two-day interview with Maxwell last year, during which he asked Maxwell about her relationship with Epstein and other powerful people in his orbit. Shortly after their meeting, Maxwell was moved from a low-security federal correctional facility in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas.
