Not long after Senator John Cornyn lost his re-election bid to a right-wing challenger backed by President Trump, the Texas Republican predicted that the remainder of his Senate tenure might be a “pretty bumpy ride” for the president. He warned that he and other lame-duck senators had “some cards to play” and would not hesitate to use them.
This week, depending on the metaphor you prefer, Mr. Cornyn either made himself a giant senatorial pothole or laid his hand on the table.
By wielding his vote on the Judiciary Committee as leverage, a newly liberated Mr. Cornyn threw Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general, Todd Blanche, into limbo as the Senate left town for the weekend on Thursday night.
Both he and Senator Thom Tillis — the North Carolina Republican who chose not to seek re-election after Mr. Trump threatened to unseat him — said that they would not advance Mr. Blanche’s nomination unless the Justice Department agreed to narrow an immunity settlement that Mr. Trump reached with the I.R.S. to protect himself and his family.
The red line that Mr. Cornyn has drawn is fairly thin. He and Mr. Tillis are not seeking to kill the deal that Mr. Blanche negotiated with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, which gave the president, his family and his businesses broad immunity, potentially saving them at least $100 million in penalties and drawing accusations from Democrats of self-dealing. They are merely demanding modifications — in writing.
Still, his willingness to dig in his heels against a demand by Mr. Trump at a moment when the president’s popularity is sagging and senators are increasingly frustrated with him is notable.
Though Mr. Tillis has been more openly critical of Mr. Trump for months, Mr. Cornyn, a one-time contender for Senate majority leader, had long been a reliable Republican vote who rarely said a critical word about the president.
The senator, whose political future was cut short by Mr. Trump, has seemed to delight in the shift in power. Asked this week if the impending end of his political career had imbued him with a sense of independence, the senator flashed reporters crowded around him a playful smile.
“Have you noticed?” he said.
Yet as he finds himself emboldened, Mr. Cornyn has fashioned himself not as a scorned outcast seeking retribution but rather as a shield for other Republicans who share his concerns about the president’s settlement but fear the political consequences of airing them. In doing so, he has confirmed a truism of the Trump era: Republicans in Congress routinely swallow their distaste for and even outrage about the president’s actions, usually daring to act on them only once they are on their way out the door.
Mr. Cornyn made it explicit on Thursday morning, right after Mr. Trump suggested he might postpone Mr. Blanche’s nomination until the next Congress to get around the two G.O.P. objectors.
The president “is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” Mr. Cornyn wrote on social media.
Some of his Republican colleagues backed him up — but none of those who are currently seeking re-election. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that she “was actually hopeful” about Mr. Cornyn’s negotiations with Mr. Blanche because she had raised the same issues with him in a private meeting.
“I made it very clear where my concerns were,” Ms. Murkowski said. She said she had asked the nominee both about narrowing the I.R.S. settlement agreement and ensuring that a plan by the Justice Department to establish a $1.8 billion fund for people claiming to have been unfairly prosecuted by the government was “truly dead,” another concern Mr. Cornyn had raised.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who also lost his Republican primary to a Trump-backed challenger, said that he shared Mr. Cornyn’s desire to see limits on the I.R.S. settlement.
Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, met with Mr. Blanche on Wednesday and told The Deseret News, a Utah-based newspaper, that he supported Mr. Cornyn’s efforts.
Mr. Cornyn’s request is fairly modest. He wants the Justice Department to guarantee what Mr. Blanche said under oath at his confirmation hearing: that the I.R.S. immunity would apply only to Mr. Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization, and that it would be limited only to audits of past tax returns.
“All we’re doing is asking them to put that in writing,” Mr. Cornyn said.
That is a break from a now established pattern in which congressional Republicans critical of Mr. Trump’s policies offer broad and unspecific objections, only to back down after receiving equally broad assurances.
It was a strategy he had already deployed successfully. Earlier this month, Mr. Cornyn threatened to block two of Mr. Trump’s ambassadorial nominees if the administration continued withholding millions of dollars that Congress appropriated for H.I.V. prevention.
Mr. Cornyn’s clear parameters seemed to help him keep his colleagues’ measured support rather than drawing their scorn for sinking one of the president’s priorities.
“I certainly respect my colleague’s right to ask questions and to get items that were within his testimony clarified,” said Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota.
And, he added, if Mr. Blanche “can’t get them clarified, then that suggests that maybe there’s a misunderstanding as to what he was testifying for in the first place.”
Carl Hulse and Olivia Diaz contributed reporting.
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