Blanche’s confirmation hearing today is expected to include questions about the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files and a scuttled payout fund.
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Todd Blanche will face the first key test of his bid to become the next attorney general on Wednesday at a high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing in which he will try to win over skeptics within his own party who could stand between him and the job.
Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former defense lawyer tapped last year to serve as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee starting at 9 a.m. He has held the job of acting attorney general since April, when Trump fired the former head of the Justice Department, Pam Bondi.
But some Republicans on the committee — including Sens. Thom Tillis (North Carolina) and John Cornyn (Texas) — have raised questions about Blanche’s oversight of a controversial deal to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS. In a Monday ruling, a federal judge characterized the agreement as an “improper” exercise in self-dealing and an abuse of the court process.
Cornyn told reporters Tuesday that he had questions for Blanche about the deal, which included unusual tax benefits for the president and a now-scuttled proposal for a $1.8 billion payout fund for those who claim they were unfairly targeted by politicized prosecutions.
The senator added that Blanche’s answers before the committee Wednesday could determine whether he will receive his backing — though, Tillis, an early skeptic, said he was leaning toward giving Blanche his support.
Should either of them vote against Blanche, it would be enough to stop his nomination before it gets to the Senate floor. Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) also said he had questions for Blanche and had not yet decided whether he would support him.
With the death of another committee member, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), over the weekend, there are 11 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to the Democrats’ 10. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said Tuesday a decision has not yet been made on who would replace Graham on the committee.
Trump, in a social media post Tuesday, called Blanche “tough, brilliant, and 100% LOYAL to our Constitution, and the American people” and urged Republicans to fall in line.
“He is a great lawyer, always very fair, and every Republican Senator should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blanche, ASAP!” the president wrote.
That Trump felt the need to push members of his own party to back his nominee underscores the extent to which the Justice Department‘s relationship with Republicans in Congress has frayed at times during the first year-and-a-half of his second term.
For months, the department has grappled with bipartisan backlash over its handling of the public release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Republican lawmakers have criticized the department for sloppy redactions that exposed the names of some Epstein victims, while accusing officials of over-redacting in others, potentially obscuring names of others who may have been complicit in Epstein’s crimes.
Blanche, under Bondi, oversaw that public rollout, and with Bondi at his side endured a heated closed-door session with members of a House committee earlier this year.
Another tense closed-door session followed this spring after Blanche’s announcement of the deal to resolve the suit Trump filed against the IRS after his taxes were leaked to the media. The proposed $1.8 billion payout fund for those who claimed they had been wrongfully prosecuted triggered rare rebellion by Senate Republicans, who expressed concern that it could be used to compensate people convicted of attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
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The deal also shielded the president, his family and his associated businesses from past tax claims, a potentially lucrative benefit for a president who has complained about burdensome IRS audits in the past — a provision that also drew some Republican skepticism.
The backlash prompted Blanche, days afterward, to return to Capitol Hill to assure lawmakers that the Justice Department no longer intended to move forward with the fund proposal but he has said the department intends to honor its agreement with the Trumps regarding past tax claims.
In a scathing ruling Monday, the judge who was overseeing the president’s suit accused Blanche and Trump’s personal attorneys of attempting to mislead her. The parties, she said, were never in disagreement over the outcome and the suit was an attempt to “brought to manipulate the judicial process.”
Cornyn, who has at times criticized the Trump administration since losing his reelection primary runoff in May, pointed to that ruling, telling reporters Tuesday he planned to ask Blanche “whether or not the lawsuit that was brought was actually a real lawsuit or whether it was just, in the words of a federal judge, collusive.”
Heading into Wednesday’s confirmation hearing, Democrats see the Epstein controversy and the dispute over Trump’s settlement with the IRS as their best shots of convincing Republican skeptics to vote against Blanche’s nomination. They intend to focus their grilling of the acting attorney general on those issues, according to two people familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans.
Democrats are all but certain to also draw attention to Blanche’s oversight of several Justice Department investigations targeting Trump’s critics, including former FBI director James B. Comey, who was indicted in April on charges of threatening Trump by posting a photo of seashells spelling out “86 47.” Trump is the 47th president; “86” can mean banning or removing someone, but it can also be slang for killing a person.
“Mr. Blanche is at the helm of a weaponized Justice Department, putting President Trump ahead of the Constitution [and] the rule of law,” Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois), the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “It’s clear that Mr. Blanche has never stopped being President Trump’s personal attorney.”
Durbin, who met with Blanche on Tuesday, said the acting attorney general privately expressed regret during their conversation for his role in championing the proposed $1.8 billion payout fund.
“I made a mistake,” Durbin said Blanche told him during their meeting. A Justice Department spokesperson later acknowledged that Blanche had used that language in speaking with the senator, but took issue with other aspects of the senator’s account of their conversation.
“It is unfortunate that a cordial private meeting was taken out of context,” the department said in a statement. “The Acting Attorney General looks forward to answering any and all questions the Senators have tomorrow — in public — before the Senate Judiciary Committee.“
The Judiciary Committee is also expected to hear from several witnesses in support of or against Blanche’s nomination on Thursday and then vote later this month whether to advance it to the full Senate.
If that happens, the Senate Republican leadership has said it intends to hold a full confirmation vote on Blanche before the chamber departs for its August recess.
Thune said he was optimistic that in the end Blanche would be confirmed.
“The meetings he’s had with individual senators both on the Judiciary Committee and off have gone really well,” Thune told reporters Tuesday. “The readouts and feedback I’ve gotten have been really strong. So hopefully there’ll be a path forward.”
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This is a developing story and will be updated.
