The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as President Donald Trump’s attorney general in the early morning hours Saturday, one of its final votes before leaving for the August recess.
The 50-49 vote fell largely along party lines, with two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), joining Democrats in opposing Blanche’s nomination. The outcome of that vote was for days in doubt as Blanche negotiated language assuring holdout senators that the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund was dead.
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He also faced skepticism that he could run the agency apolitically as President Donald Trump’s ex-personal attorney.
But the written agreement killing the fund, controversial for its expected payouts to Jan. 6 defendants, was enough to win over Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a long-time skeptic of Trump, then announced he’d cast the deciding vote in favor of Blanche’s nomination on Friday, attributing his support to the assurances he received in meetings with Blanche, as well as his conversations with former Attorney General Bill Barr.
Cassidy announced his support in a floor speech that ended weeks of suspense surrounding Blanche’s nomination and cleared the way for his confirmation. On any party-line vote, Republicans could only afford to lose two GOP members due to the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
The vote gives the Justice Department a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time since April, when Pam Bondi stepped down from the attorney general post. Blanche, formerly the deputy attorney general, had been serving in her place on an acting basis.
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“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,” Blanche said in a statement released after the vote, adding that he was “grateful to the Senate for staying late to complete this process.”
The vote was one of several senators took before leaving Washington until September in a rare overnight session. Republicans scrapped a vote on a party-line blueprint for Pentagon funding that was set to fail without further negotiations. But they managed to pass a bipartisan bill funding the government until Dec. 11 by an overwhelming 90-6 margin. Earlier in the day, the chamber passed a Russia sanctions bill sponsored by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
