Blanche nomination has momentum, despite a few GOP obstacles

Senate Blanche nomination has momentum, despite a few GOP obstacles Comments: by Alexander Bolton - 08/04/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Alexander Bolton - 08/04/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation to the permanent post faces hurdles in the Senate even after the dramatic deal involving Republican Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (N.C.), as several other key GOP senators remain undecided over his nomination.

Centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who faces a tough reelection contest in a Democratic-leaning state, has yet to announce her support for Blanche. Her vote could become a campaign issue if she backs him.

Collins grilled Blanche over the Justice Department’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, but Blanche on Sunday signed a memo rescinding the May 18 order establishing the fund as part of the deal to secure support from Cornyn and Tillis.

Meanwhile, centrist Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), perhaps the most independent member of the Senate Republican conference, is also undecided on how to vote on Blanche.

Blanche has worked hard for Murkowski’s support and visited two rural communities in Western Alaska last month to meet with tribal leaders about public safety issues in those remote settlements.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a maverick who has bucked President Trump on several high-profile issues, is also a swing vote.

He recently criticized the Justice Department’s investigation of former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified in 2022 to a special House Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I have to make sure that he is the attorney general who used to be the president’s personal attorney, not the personal attorney who’s also the attorney general,” Cassidy said last week. “I am concerned about the lawfare, going after people. Cassidy Hutchinson, for example, a grand jury — I’m told — is being empaneled, going after her. Why? Tell me that again, why?”

“The fact that that’s happening … should concern all Americans because where does it stop?” the senator added.

Cassidy declined to comment on Blanche on Monday evening.

Sen. John Curtis (Utah), another GOP moderate, is also staying quiet on how he plans to vote on Blanche.

He met with the nominee recently to discuss a legal battle between the Justice Department and his home state over federal agency demands for access to Utah’s voter rolls. The Justice Department has threatened to prosecute Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson if she doesn’t share voter data, according to the Deseret News.

Curtis said if former President Biden had made a similar demand, “Utahns would be very grumpy.”

The Utah senator declined to talk about Blanche on Monday.

Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who faces a tough reelection race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), also declined to comment about whether he would vote for Blanche.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on Monday that he hasn’t yet whipped the GOP conference to know if there’s enough support to confirm Blanche, but he’s hoping to get the nomination approved before Congress leaves at the end of the week for the August recess.

Thune’s task of confirming Blanche is complicated by the absence of 84-year-old Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), which has effectively shrunk his majority to 52 seats.

With McConnell away, Thune could afford to lose only two Republicans on a vote to confirm Blanche, if all 47 members of the Senate Democratic caucus vote “no.”

“Right now, it’s still pending in the committee but hopefully it will come out of the committee tomorrow and then we’ll go from there,” Thune told reporters Monday afternoon.

“We have a bunch of stuff we have to finish, and we’ll just stay here until we finish it,” the Senate leader added. “We’ll see how the week progresses on some of these questions that we don’t know the answers to.”

Asked if he would guarantee a final vote on Blanche before embarking on a five-week recess, Thune said, “Ideally, we’d like to get him done. … I’d like to figure out a path forward to get him done.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has scheduled an executive business meeting at 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday to vote on bringing Blanche’s nomination to the floor.

Thune plans to put Blanche on the Senate calendar later on Tuesday and to file a cloture motion on the nominee Wednesday, setting up the first-floor vote on Friday and a final confirmation vote on Saturday.

After chatting with GOP colleagues on the Senate floor Monday evening, Thune sounded more confident about getting Blanche across the finish line this week.

“My assumption is, hopefully, they’ll get him out of committee favorably [Tuesday] and we’ll find a way to get him across the floor,” he said.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he expects Blanche to get confirmed this week, noting he’s only heard of one or two GOP colleagues expressing serious concerns about him taking the top job at the Justice Department on a Senate-confirmed basis.

“I think he’s going to be confirmed. I only heard one or two other people — who will remain nameless — who have raised questions,” he said.

The Louisiana senator praised Blanche and the Justice Department for striking a deal over the weekend with Cornyn and Tillis to rescind the order establishing the anti-weaponization fund and setting the parameters of a settlement with Trump, his family and the IRS.

Democrats could speed up the timeline for processing Blanche by yielding back floor time, but they haven’t yet settled on a strategy.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) panned the Justice Department’s agreement with Cornyn and Tillis, arguing it didn’t prevent Trump and his family from benefiting from sweeping immunity from IRS audits over past tax returns.

“Instead of seeing Todd Blanche’s so-called deal for the sham that it is, Senate Republicans are once again taking Trump’s personal attorney at his word. All Blanche’s deal does is accept the reality that Trump’s MAGA trust fund will never get through the courts. Blanche’s so-called deal does nothing to stop the IRS sweetheart deal that lets Trump and his family cheat their way out of tens of millions of dollars in taxes,” Schumer said on the floor.

Cornyn, however, defended the agreement that swayed him and Tillis to support Blanche’s nomination when it comes up for a vote in committee Tuesday.

He noted that Blanche’s decision to rescind the order establishing the $1.8 billion fund “is legally binding.”

“So it’s gone,” he declared.

And Cornyn said he’s not bothered by the settlement to grant Trump and his family immunity from audits over past tax reforms, arguing that Trump suffered an injury when an IRS contractor leaked those returns to the media.

“The president was wronged by the contractor that released his tax returns, and that guy I think is still in federal prison, so that was certainly a legitimate lawsuit,” the Texas senator said. “One of the other things that we were able to clarify that the scope of the release is for retroactive actions that could have been brought but weren’t brought, and not prospective.”

“Typically, when you settle a lawsuit, you settle all claims that have been or could have been brought by the time you sign that settlement. So that part doesn’t bother me that much,” he added.

Members of the Senate Republican leadership team view the deal Cornyn and Tillis struck with Blanche and the Justice Department Sunday as a breakthrough that gives Blanche’s nomination significant momentum.

“That was a major hurdle that looks like it’s been surpassed, I hope we can move it forward,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), an adviser to the leadership team.

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) predicted: “He’ll have the votes.”

Add as preferred source on Google Tags Bill Cassidy Cassidy Hutchinson John Cornyn John Thune Jon Husted Lisa Murkowski Susan Collins Thom Tillis Todd Blanche

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