Humiliated Republican Could Sink Trump’s Prized Cabinet Pick

A rebellion with unmistakably Texas proportions is taking shape inside the polished, white-marble corridors of the Hart Senate Office Building, just steps from the US Capitol.

At the center of the fight is the confirmation battle over acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s aggressive former personal attorney, whom the president has nominated to permanently take charge of the Justice Department following Pam Bondi’s dismissal.

Trump has framed much of his second term around payback against political foes. Yet in a sharp twist of Washington irony, one of the Republicans he previously defeated may now be in position to deliver some revenge of his own — and with little political downside left to fear.

That Republican is Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who used Blanche’s confirmation hearing this week to zero in on a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” designed to compensate people described by Trump allies as victims of Justice Department “lawfare” under earlier administrations.

For Cornyn, it is one of two major red flags surrounding Blanche’s nomination.

“It is a moot issue, meaning there is no weaponization fund,” Blanche told the Texas senator when pressed about the $1.8 billion pool of money.

Cornyn also challenged Blanche over a broad tax immunity arrangement covering Trump and members of his family, pointing out during the exchange that Trump “has not agreed in writing” to abandon the fund. In June, Cornyn told the New York Times that the tax exemption amounted to “a terrible mistake.”

Blanche’s assurances, however, appeared to do little to calm Cornyn, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, who repeatedly gestured during the hearing toward a poster behind him displaying the language of Trump’s tax agreement.

‘I continue to have some concerns,’ Cornyn told CNN’s Manu Raju of Blanche’s confirmation – a sentiment he echoed, both on-camera and off, as the hearing dragged into its fifth hour. 

‘I don’t have to make a decision until the vote is called, so I’m not ready to make the decision now,’ Cornyn said after the first of the two-day confirmation wrapped.

Just days earlier, Republicans on the panel could have shrugged off Cornyn’s opposition and proceeded to advance Blanche to the full Senate floor for a vote. 

But the sudden death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has abruptly shifted the calculus – leaving the Senate Judiciary Committee with a razor-thin majority and Republican members in a near-term state of flux. 

To advance Blanche’s nomination out of committee, Senate Republicans will now need the ‘yes’ vote of every single Republican on the panel. As of now, a person familiar with the proceedings told the Daily Mail, the committee ‘very strongly’ has ten.

Cornyn holds a pivotal vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which, as of writing, is comprised of 21 members, including ten Democrats and 11 Republicans. 

The slimmer majority means that Republicans on the panel cannot afford even a single defection. A ‘no’ vote from Cornyn would leave the panel hopelessly deadlocked, snarling the process by which they would advance Blanche out of committee and to the full Senate floor for a vote.

Cornyn ‘doesn’t trust Todd Blanche, and he shouldn’t,’ Anthony Coley, a former Justice Department official who served under the Biden administration, told the Daily Mail. ‘The fact that Blanche even agreed to the slush fund in the first place proves that Blanche doesn’t have the judgment or the independence required to be the nation’s attorney general.’

Wednesday capped what amounted to a tense, day-long testimony from Blanche, who fielded tough questions from Democrats and Republicans alike on a host of controversial actions the Justice Department has taken in Trump’s second term. 

Among them, the Justice Department’s botched release of the Epstein files, his personal loyalty to Trump, and concerns about carrying out politically motivated investigations or penalizing career officials who refused to carry out these marching orders. 

Cornyn is one of two Senate Republicans who had expressed serious reservations about Blanche’s confirmation in recent weeks. 

The other, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is retiring by choice after getting in Trump’s crosshairs, had seemed to warm on Blanche’s confirmation following a one-on-one meeting he held with the acting attorney general. 

But as the hearing stretched into its second day, Tillis, too, said he was planning to withhold his vote of approval until Blanche met with Epstein survivors.

Blanche has faced criticism for his handling of the Epstein files and actions at DOJ, including overseeing a botched release of partially unredacted files, ordering the transfer of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison, and refusing to meet with any of the victims, including at least ten who were present in the audience during his testimony.

Tillis said that Blanche’s meeting with the survivors will be a ‘very important part’ of his vote.

‘I expect that meeting to occur before I’m willing to vote out of this committee, and I’m trying to get to yes,’ he said on Thursday.

Things could change in the days ahead. Republicans stressed that Wednesday’s testimony was just the first in a two-day confirmation hearing for Blanche, whose committee vote will likely be scheduled next week. 

But it’s unclear when Graham will be replaced on the panel, or who will be tapped to replace him, as interviews with multiple Senate staffers and other individuals with knowledge of the process made clear. 

That means Cornyn, a four-term Senate stalwart who very publicly soured on Trump in the wake of his stinging primary defeat, now holds an outsize amount of power in the process. 

And while Cornyn stressed that he’s not yet made a decision on whether he will support Blanche, telling CNN and other outlets that he plans to wait until the end of the hearings to begin considering how he’ll vote, the lame duck senator now has the power to theoretically inject a Texas-sized hurdle into the process.

This could be painful for Trump, who has been without a Senate-confirmed attorney general since April. 

But for Cornyn, who lamented Trump’s demands for ‘slavish’ loyalty in a recent interview, it would be the ultimate exit move.

Cornyn told the outlet that, in his final months as a ‘lame duck’ senator, he’d reserve the right to choose where he is ‘going to – or going to not – defer’ to Trump.

‘With the untimely death of Senator Lindsey Graham, [Cornyn] also has to be thinking about his place in history,’ Coley, the former DOJ official, added. 

‘Deep down, he knows it’s simply wrong to leave any door open that could allow taxpayer dollars to compensate Jan 6 rioters. In the end, that question of conscience may be the greatest obstacle to Todd Blanche’s confirmation.’