Washington — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general to the Senate floor, clearing a key hurdle for President Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department.
The GOP-led panel voted 12-10 along party lines to advance Blanche’s nomination. The acting attorney general overcame skepticism from Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina over the $1.8 billion fund designed to compensate victims of alleged “weaponization” by the government and earned their support.
The concerns from Tillis and Cornyn over the program and a sweeping deal to grant the president immunity from tax audits threatened to derail Blanche’s nomination. But late Sunday, following weeks of negotiations with the senators, Blanche issued a new order that rescinded his initial directive creating the “anti-weaponization” fund and clarified that the immunity provision covers only potential audits of previous years’ tax returns and applies only to Mr. Trump, his two oldest sons and the Trump Organization.
The order from Blanche does not modify the terms of the settlement agreement that Mr. Trump reached with the IRS in May to resolve a civil lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns by a former government contractor. The president has continued to express support for the “anti-weaponization” fund and threatened Saturday to revive it if Cornyn and Tillis opposed Blanche as attorney general.
Still, Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement Monday that they are “pleased” with the formal order ending the fund. The Justice Department’s acknowledgement of the limits of the tax immunity deal addresses concerns from multiple GOP colleagues, the two senators said.
“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn and Tillis said.
In remarks during the Judiciary Committee’s hearing, the two senators defended the terms they laid out in order to support Blanche’s nomination and the commitments they secured from the Justice Department.
“Given this agreement with Mr. Blanche, I expect the department to live up to this in future litigation,” Cornyn said, adding that his vote to advance Blanche’s nomination “goes beyond this document. We need a stabilizing force at the Department of Justice and Mr. Blanche deserves the opportunity to provide that.” The department, he said, “does not need a temporary, unconfirmed nominee as our nation’s top law enforcement officer.”
With Blanche’s nomination for attorney general advancing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it heads to the full Senate for a vote. A simple majority is needed to confirm him to the post.
Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Blanche’s Nomination For Attorney General
