President Donald Trump is trying to ram through his controversial assistant attorney general, Todd Blanche, to be America’s official attorney general — and despite their claims to independence, it appears many Senate Republicans are prepared to go along with him.
“Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican undecided about Todd Blanche’s nomination as permanent attorney general, drew a red line last month: He would vote no if Mr. Blanche was too soft on the rioters who had ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6,” reported The New York Times’ Glenn Thrust and Alan Feuer on Sunday. “Soon after, Mr. Tillis, a moderate on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had a ‘positive predisposition’ after meeting with Mr. Blanche, despite the fact that the acting attorney general had recently signed off on a $1.8 billion fund that could have been funneled to those who stormed Congress.”
In general, the Tillis anecdote reflects the broader sentiment among Senate Republicans. Since the start of Trump’s second term, GOP lawmakers have often expressed skepticism or even outright opposition to Trump’s more controversial picks — from FBI Director Kash Patel to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — before ultimately lining up in lockstep behind Trump’s choices and deferring to his wishes.
As such, even though Republicans claim to be concerned about Blanche’s fealty to Trump and insisting he not help with the $1.8 billion slush fund, there are early signs that they are not going to push too hard against him.
“In private meetings, Mr. Blanche has repeatedly told senators the fund plan was ‘dead,’ at times repeating the word three times for emphasis, according to people familiar with the conversations,” the Times reported. “But he has given no indication that he intends to scrap the part of the agreement offering immunity on past I.R.S. audits.”
In that vein, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has said that he wants to learn more about Blanche’s views on whether Trump should be forever exempt from tax audits, although he has not gone so far as to say that he will vote against Blanche if he says he still supports this for the president.
“Unlike Mr. Tillis, Mr. Cornyn has not yet indicated how he is leaning and has requested a follow-up briefing on the tax issue,” the Times reported. “‘I will not make a decision on confirmation until after that briefing and completion of his hearing before the committee,’ Mr. Cornyn wrote in a recent X post.”
In contrast to Cornyn and Tillis, the latter of whom said he will oppose Blanche’s appointment if there is “even a whiff of a lack of independence,” the Times reported that “Democrats say there has been a waft, not a whiff. They see the hearing as an opportunity for the committee’s Republican majority to reassert legislative authority over a department they regard as a cabal of Mr. Trump’s formal personal lawyers acting in his interests, rather than for the public good.”
The venerable newspaper also pointed out that Blanche is appearing before a committee that has greenlit virtually all of Trump’s notable picks.
“The committee, led by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, has pushed through Trump appointees, even those Republicans have criticized — like the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel — after extracting vague assurances from the nominees that they would safeguard the department’s tradition of independence and abide by the rule of law,” the Times wrote.
Earlier this month, Blanche came under fire for seemingly continuing to help Trump cover up his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, the late child sex trafficker with whom he was friends for decades and who allegedly facilitated his encounter with a 13-year-old girl who says he sexually assaulted her. When the government watchdog group American Oversight demanded the release of files related to Epstein through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it met with resistance. They asked for “all email communications sent or received by Todd Blanche and containing both a key term from Column A and a key term from Column B,” and “all text messages and messages on messaging platforms ... sent or received by Todd Blanche and containing the term ‘Epstein.’” The columns include words like “Epstein," “Maxwell,” “Trump,” “DJT,” “POTUS,” “DOE174,” “Tallahassee” and various related terms, according to a report by The New Republic.
