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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) said Friday that he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, giving President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department the last expected vote he needs to be approved by the full Senate.
Cassidy made the announcement on the Senate floor just hours after Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, another critical GOP vote, said she would oppose Blanche’s nomination. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced earlier this week that she would be voting no.
But with Cassidy’s support now in hand, the Senate’s Republican leadership is expected to move forward with a vote on Blanche’s confirmation as soon as Friday after weeks in which the acting attorney general’s prospects appeared to be in doubt.
With all Democrats expected to oppose Blanche and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) absent for health reasons, a no vote by Cassidy would at minimum have forced an embarrassing delay in the full Senate’s confirmation vote.
Cassidy said he shared Murkowski’s concerns over the “politicization” of the Justice Department under Trump and the controversial deal Blanche oversaw this spring to settle Trump’s claims against the IRS, which included a plan for a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were victims of political prosecutions.
But he characterized Blanche as well-qualified and perhaps the best nominee the Justice Department could expect under Trump.
“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department as good as Mr. Blanche.”
But the fact that Blanche’s nomination was in doubt early Friday and hinging on Cassidy’s vote underscored the growing unease that has emerged in some corners of the president’s party over the Justice Department’s direction. It also highlighted the extent to which Trump’s attacks on GOP lawmakers whom he deems insufficiently loyal have prompted an increased willingness among Republicans to buck his demands.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has eroded the Justice Department’s long-standing tradition of independence from the White House while demanding it pursue prosecutions of his political enemies and reward his political allies.
Blanche, the president’s former criminal defense lawyer, has overseen many of those efforts — including attempted prosecutions of former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both Trump critics — serving first as the No. 2 official under Attorney General Pam Bondi and then as the department’s acting head after Trump fired Bondi in April.
Just hours before Murkowski issued her statement on Blanche’s nomination Friday, Trump said in a Punchbowl News interview that he was “against” her. Murkowski has shown an independent streak, voting against the administration on several controversial measures.
“I’m against Murkowski,” Trump said. “I do more for Alaska than any president in history. No president’s done for Alaska what I’ve done. She’s not good.”
Earlier this week, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had threatened to kill Blanche’s nomination in committee over reservations they harbored about the out-of-court deal Blanche oversaw this spring settling the lawsuit Trump brought against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns to the media.
In addition to the taxpayer-backed payout fund, the deal also provided unusual tax protections to Trump, two of his sons and their businesses, shielding them from any preexisting tax audits.
The fund proposal drew immediate bipartisan backlash with Democrats deriding it as a “slush fund” designed to reward Trump’s allies, including people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Blanche, in the face of that condemnation, said days after the fund’s announcement that the Justice Department no longer intended to move forward with the proposal. But the acting attorney general resisted calls to put that pledge into writing.
Cornyn and Tillis, who are leaving the Senate after this year after tangling with Trump, said their votes to advance Blanche’s nomination out of committee hinged on Blanche providing them written assurances of that promise.
Blanche ultimately relented, issuing statements late Sunday declaring the fund officially dead and clarifying that the deal’s tax provisions protected the Trumps only from past tax audits and would not prevent the IRS from reviewing their finances in the future.
Critics have questioned whether the assurances he provided hold any legal weight, given they weren’t also signed by Trump and his legal team and could be reversed by the president at any point.
Murkowski raised that possibility in her statement Friday, saying the only reason the payout fund was now off the table was because Blanche needed Senate support for his nomination
“Once we vote, that will end,” she said, “and there is no telling what the future holds.”
Still, Blanche’s written assurances were enough to secure the support of Cornyn and Tillis – a key step many believed had put Blanche’s nomination on a glidepath to securing the Republican votes needed for confirmation.
But as the final vote drew nearer, signs of trouble continued to emerge.
Collins, who faces a competitive election in November in her purple state of Maine, issued a statement Tuesday saying she would not vote for Blanche. She cited concerns over the IRS deal and the failed Justice Department effort earlier this year to indict Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) as well as other lawmakers over a video they made urging service members to resist unlawful orders.
“While I believe Mr. Blanche is a capable lawyer, the Department of Justice has become increasingly political,” Collins said.
Murkowski and Cassidy, who lost his bid for reelection this spring after Trump endorsed his GOP primary opponent, resisted pledging their support for days.
Cassidy, too, had expressed concerns over the department’s recent track record of “so-called lawfare — people being prosecuted not for a valid reason beyond somebody in high office being angry at them” and said it would weigh heavily on his vote.
Still, he said Friday that his past disagreements with Trump did not affect his decision.
“I have a history with Mr. Trump, but that history does not matter one bit,” Cassidy said.
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