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 hehad 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 suitTrump 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.
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.
