Todd Blanche survived a bruising confirmation fight to become the nation's 88th attorney general, winning Senate approval by a single vote after a last-minute decision by a Louisiana Republican broke the deadlock.
The Senate voted 50-49 early Saturday morning to confirm Blanche on a permanent basis, ending months of turmoil at the Justice Department and capping a nomination battle that exposed deep fractures inside the Republican conference. Two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, crossed party lines to vote with every Senate Democrat against the former Trump defense lawyer, the New York Post reported.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was absent due to ongoing health issues, which meant Blanche could afford to lose exactly two Republican votes, and not one more. That arithmetic turned the entire confirmation into a waiting game for Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose decision to back Blanche proved decisive.
Cassidy, a Republican who voted to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection after Jan. 6, 2021, and who lost his own primary race in May after Trump endorsed his opponent, was the last holdout whose position remained uncertain. He did not let the nominee off easy. Cassidy faulted Blanche for approving what critics called a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund and for exempting the president from IRS audits, moves Cassidy said reflected poor judgment.
But in the end, Cassidy cast the deciding vote. Fox News reported that Cassidy framed his decision in pragmatic terms:
"Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this. 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."
Cassidy also said his vote was not an endorsement of every administration decision. "This is not a referendum on President Trump," he said. "It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances."
That framing, confirm the best available option or leave the department rudderless, carried the day. McConnell's prolonged absence had already narrowed the GOP's margin on every Trump nominee, and the August recess deadline left no room for delay.
The controversy that almost ended Blanche's candidacy began with a May 19 DOJ order he oversaw as acting attorney general. That order created a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund and, as part of a settlement of a lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS, granted the president, his family, and his business entities immunity from IRS audits.
Republican senators reacted sharply. Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina demanded a written document affirming the fund was dead and clarifying whether the president and his family were permanently shielded from future IRS scrutiny. Their resistance stalled the confirmation vote for days.
Blanche declared the fund "dead" during his July 15 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But words were not enough for the holdouts. National Review reported that Cornyn and Tillis negotiated written confirmation from the administration that the IRS audit immunity was narrower than originally interpreted, though the underlying settlement agreement itself remained unchanged.
Blanche ultimately rescinded the fund in writing before the final vote, Breitbart reported, a concession that helped bring Cornyn and Tillis back into the fold. The Washington Examiner noted the fund had been expected to pay out to Jan. 6 defendants, adding another layer of political sensitivity for Republican senators facing voters skeptical of the arrangement.
The concessions were not enough for everyone. Murkowski announced her opposition before the final vote, citing Blanche's handling of the release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump-IRS settlement, and what she described as an increasingly politicized Justice Department that has repeatedly gone after the president's political enemies.
Murkowski said she lacked confidence that Blanche would check the administration's impulses. "The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration," she said. "I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case."
Collins raised the same set of concerns, the Epstein files, the IRS deal, and DOJ independence, and voted no alongside Murkowski. Their defections mirrored a pattern that has defined the narrowly divided Senate: on contentious nominees, the GOP majority can survive one or two dissenters but has no margin beyond that.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa spoke ahead of the vote and urged his colleagues to back Blanche. The committee had cleared the nomination 12-10 along party lines earlier in the week, sending it to the full Senate without a single Democratic vote.
Grassley offered a full-throated endorsement:
"Between his proven track record, his presentations to our committee and the support he's received from across the country, I am convinced Mr. Blanche is the right choice to lead the Justice Department."
He added: "A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote for the safety of the American people."
Grassley pointed to Blanche's record leading the department since April 2, when Trump fired Pam Bondi and elevated Blanche from deputy attorney general to acting AG. The 51-year-old Colorado native had previously served as Trump's personal defense lawyer before joining the administration.
Every Senate Democrat voted no. Sen. Dick Durbin framed his opposition in terms of DOJ independence. "If there is ever a moment in history when we need an Attorney General above reproach, who is clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government, it's right now," AP News reported Durbin said.
The unified Democratic opposition was expected. Blanche's background as Trump's personal lawyer and his actions as acting AG, including accelerating investigations that critics characterized as targeting the president's political opponents, gave Democrats no reason to cross the aisle.
But the real story of this confirmation was never about Democrats. It was about whether Republicans could hold their own caucus together on a nominee who had generated genuine, substantive objections from within the party. The answer, barely, was yes.
After the vote, Blanche acknowledged the difficulty of the process. "I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation's 88th Attorney General," he said. "I am grateful to the Senate for staying late to complete this process."
Rep. Jim Jordan praised the outcome. "Blanche has the experience, the expertise, and the character we need leading the Department of Justice right now," Jordan said.
The confirmation came just before the August recess, ending a stretch in which the Justice Department operated without a Senate-confirmed leader. Open questions remain, including the precise scope of the IRS audit immunity, the status of unreleased Epstein-related documents, and whether the written assurances given to Cornyn and Tillis carry any binding force beyond a political promise.
Blanche now leads a department that half the Senate voted against entrusting to him. He earned the job by one vote, after rescinding his own policy under pressure from his own party. How he uses the authority he fought so hard to keep will determine whether the senators who backed him made the right call, or simply the expedient one.
