Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general was on thin ice when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reached out with a plea.

“Don’t overcomplicate this. Get it done,” Grassley said in a late July phone call to Blanche, encouraging him to compromise with two holdouts on his committee who wanted written assurances that the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund was, in fact, dead.