President Donald Trump has officially nominated Todd Blanche, his former personal attorney and the current acting attorney general, to step into the position on a permanent basis.
The nomination sets up what is likely to be a contentious confirmation process in the Senate.
In the weeks since Trump tapped him for the acting role following Pam Bondi’s ouster as Attorney General, Blanche has faced controversy over his role in the effort to create an “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate people the Trump Administration deemed to have been unfairly targeted by the federal government. Blanche drew particular criticism after he declined to rule out the possibility of people charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol being compensated through the fund. The Administration has since said it will not move forward with creating the fund after it drew pushback from bipartisan lawmakers and the courts.
Read More: What’s the Status of Trump’s Anti-Weaponization ‘Slush’ Fund?
Blanche has also faced scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his past work as Trump’s personal lawyer.
Republican Senators have suggested that the prospects for Blanche’s confirmation are uncertain despite the party’s majority in the upper chamber.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina—a member of theSenate Judiciary Committee, which will determine whether or not to advance Blanche’s nomination—has indicated his support could hinge on Blanche condemning the Jan. 6 riot.
“J6 is a circuit breaker for me. It’s not a gray area for me,” Tillis said while speaking to reporters last week. “He either equivocated and said harming these Capitol police officers was an okay thing, or he didn’t, and we’ll find that in the due diligence.”
Tillis’ fellow Republican panel members Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and John Kennedy of Louisiana have also suggested they are not yet decided on whether to back Blanche’s confirmation.
Blanche faces vocal opposition from Democrats as well. Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who also serves on the committee, released a statement following Blanche’s formal nomination in which he condemned the move, citing Blanche’s prior role as Trump’s personal attorney.
“At every turn, Todd Blanche has been unable to put aside his role as Donald Trump’s criminal defense lawyer and represent the American people instead,” Schiff said. “He has allowed the President to abuse the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies with absurd seashells cases, engaged in the most blatant self-dealing by representing both Trump and his government in an IRS scam, and blessed a corrupt slush fund for cop beaters.”
Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee, said that Trump “has been engaged in the most corrupt enterprise in the history of the Presidency” and that Blanche “apparently has not noticed.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, has publicly backed Blanche’s nomination, however. In a statement, Grassley said that Blanche was “well-qualified and has shown his dedication to restoring law and order across our country. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s work to process Blanche’s nomination is underway.”
When announcing that Blanche would serve as acting attorney general in April, Trump called him “a very talented and respected legal mind” in a post on Truth Social.
“Pam Bondi led this Department with strength and conviction and I’m grateful for her leadership and friendship,” Blanche wrote on X in responseto the President’s announcement at the time. “Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General. We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe.”
Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Blanche, 51, represented the President in three of the four criminal cases he has faced. In the hush-money trial in which Trump was ultimately convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a 2016 payment to an adult film star, Blanche served as his lead defense attorney. He also defended Trump—to more favorable results—in the federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling of classified documents. Both cases were dismissed after Trump won reelection in 2024.
Trump nominated Blanche to be deputy attorney general, the No. 2 position at the Justice Department, following his return to the White House last year. Blanche was confirmed to the position by the Senate last March.
During Blanche’s tenure at the Justice Department, its traditional independence from the White House has eroded as Trump has sought to transform it into a tool to prosecute political adversaries.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, in March, Blanche bragged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had “cleaned house,” firing any and everyone who worked on the cases against the President.
“There isn’t a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump,” Blanche said.
Three former FBI agents who worked on cases against Trump and were then ousted have since cited Blanche’s comments as evidence in a lawsuit against the Administration, in which they allege that the firings were “illegal.”
Blanche also led the Justice Department’s talks last year with Epstein’s long-time associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
In a transcribed interview in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Epstein investigation late last month, Bondi claimed that Blanche “was in charge of … the entire release of the Epstein files,” over which the Justice Department has faced widespread controversy and criticism.
Blanche has defended the department’s handling of the files’ release.
“I’m not trying to defend Epstein. I’m not,” Blanche said during an appearance on former Trump administration spokesperson Katie Miller’s podcast last month prior to Bondi’s appearance before the congressional panel. “I do defend the work that that this department is doing today, right now, which is going after every single perpetrator anywhere. And if there’s a narrative that exists that we’re ignoring Epstein victims, that is false.”
Blanche served as a federal prosecutor for years before working for several prominent law firms, including WilmerHale and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. In April 2023, he became a founding partner at Blanche Law, his latest position before Trump tapped him to join the Justice Department.
Trump’s decision to oust Bondi as Attorney General in April came after he was understood to have grown increasingly frustrated with her inability to meet his demands to pursue his political enemies and with her handling of Epstein’s case.
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