The Senate voted to confirm Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general, elevating the Justice Department's No. 2 leader and President Trump's former personal lawyer to head the entire 100,000-plus person department.
The Senate vote, early Saturday morning, was 50-49 in favor of Blanche. All Democrats, as well as Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voted against him.
Blanche overcame a final speedbump on Friday after securing key support from Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. With the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Murkowski's opposition, Cassidy's vote was crucial in securing a glidepath for Blanche.
Cassidy, who lost his renomination bid to a Trump-backed challenger, acknowledged concerns over Blanche's judgment in exempting the president from IRS audits and said he was particularly troubled by the Department of Justice bringing suits against the president's perceived political enemies. But he said his decision to back Blanche was not a referendum on the president.
"Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this," Cassidy said on Friday. "But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche."
Blanche's nomination cleared a series of other hurdles, including concerns from lawmakers of both parties about the department's controversial $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund. The fund, created as part of a settlement between Trump and the IRS over the president's leaked tax returns, was meant to compensate people who alleged the federal government had been weaponized against them.
Blanche first verbally promised that the anti-weaponization fund wasn't moving ahead after it faced legal challenges. But two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who are both also leaving Congress — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — said they wanted written assurances the fund was dead, and held up the committee's vote on Blanche's nomination. Blanche provided that written statement on Aug. 2, saying the order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund "is rescinded and shall have no force or effect."
Cornyn praised Blanche's willingness to work with him and Tillis, and said the DOJ needs a permanent head; Blanche had been serving in an acting capacity after Trump pushed out Pam Bondi.
"President Trump needs someone in this role, as well with a strong legal mind, but who also is close enough to him to give him confidential legal advice to tell him hard truths," Cornyn said before the committee vote. "I would advise Mr. Blanche not to be afraid to capitalize on that earned trust when necessary for the good of the country."
In a second written statement on Aug. 2, the Justice Department clarified the scope of protections from a tax audit that were part of the same Trump-IRS settlement and shielded Trump, his family and his companies from any tax audits or enforcement for prior tax returns. That statement from the DOJ said those audit protections only apply retroactively, and are limited to Trump, two of his sons, and the Trump Organization — instead of including a potentially larger, more nebulous group of "affiliated individuals" and companies.
Legal experts and Democrats questioned whether such statements would stand up in court, as they have not been signed by all parties to the settlement, including Trump himself.
"These assurances are not worth the paper they're written on," Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law, told NPR's Ryan Lucas. "They don't pull back on the attempts to give the president and his affiliates unauthorized immunity from tax audits. And they don't do anything new to stop the president from trying to bring back the fund."
In fact, Trump earlier this week said the fund would have been "very fair" and could have given "some solace" to Trump supporters who were prosecuted for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
"I view that fund as a positive, and a lot of Republicans do too," the president told reporters.
Background as Trump's personal attorney
Justice Department veterans, legal experts, and some members of Congress have also criticized other facets of Blanche's leadership of the DOJ as well as his fitness to be attorney general.
"Todd Blanche claims he was Donald Trump's personal attorney but is continuing to act as if he's still Donald Trump's personal attorney," Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California, told NPR's Steve Inskeep. "The American people deserve better."
Trump hired Blanche as his personal attorney in 2023 to defend him from criminal charges over hush money payments, mishandling classified documents, and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. After Trump returned to the White House last year, he nominated Blanche as deputy attorney general.
Under Blanche's tenure, the Justice Department pursued Trump's promised campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies. It charged former FBI Director James Comey with making threats against the president in a photo of seashells Comey posted online. It also charged the Southern Poverty Law Center over payments it made to confidential informants to infiltrate extremist groups.
The department has opened an investigation that centers around the lawsuits the writer E. Jean Carroll brought and won against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
And the Justice Department's track record in court has also challenged the presumption of regularity: courts' assumption that DOJ officials are acting properly and in good faith, and that they're making accurate factual representations in court.
Under this administration, federal judges have repeatedly expressed concerns about the Trump administration not complying with court orders or providing representations in court that aren't backed by the facts. And the department has also seen several high-profile cases unravel recently, including dropping vandalism charges against a former Olympic canoeist and others over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The Justice Department has defended its track record in court and accused judges of overstepping their authority.
Democrats and some Republicans, including Sen. Tillis, had also been vocal in criticizing Blanche's handling of the scandal around sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and demanding that Blanche meet with Epstein survivors. Blanche did so for the first time last month to assuage those concerns.
But survivors after the meeting urged the senators to block Blanche's nomination, with one, Annie Farmer, saying she "found him abrasive, condescending, and intentionally noncommittal to survivors," according to her July 16 statement.
With assistance from NPR's Ryan Lucas and Barbara Sprunt.
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