Senate Judiciary Committee members will deliberate and vote on Thursday on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the permanent position. Because the nominee lacks critical qualifications to serve as the nation’s chief law enforcement official, members should reject his nomination.
Since March 2025, during Blanche’s tenure as deputy attorney general under Pam Bondi and acting attorney general after Trump dismissed her, the nominee has compiled a record that powerfully shows Blanche disrespects the rule of law and deploys law enforcement as a partisan weapon. Because the nominee has injured the Justice Department as deputy and acting attorney general and may have misled Congress, the panel must support nonpartisan justice by rejecting him.
In 2023 and 2024, Blanche served as Trump’s personal lawyer, defending him against a New York hush money case and two federal indictments. In Blanche’s DOJ roles, the nominee has continued elevating Trump’s interests above the country’s. For instance, Blanche has pursued strikingly weak criminal indictments, especially two against former FBI Director James Comey. Blanche has also contributed to designing and consummating a “deal” with Trump’s personal lawyers and DOJ counsel to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. That shocking deal would use $1.776 billion in taxpayer money to compensate supposed victims of putative Biden-era government weaponization, including many Jan. 6, 2021, rioters charged with storming the Capitol and assaulting police. Blanche also helped draft and signed the reprehensible side agreement that would immunize Trump, his family, and Trump businesses from IRS audits, thus exempting Trump from possible estimated tax liabilities of $100 million.
When the deal became public, strong blowback understandably erupted. Many lawmakers were outraged that taxpayer dollars could be awarded to people who savaged the Capitol, while others feared that Trump’s new fund would divert taxpayer resources from the Judgment Fund, which Congress approved decades ago to help people with legitimate claims of harm from the DOJ. Members of Congress and the public were so incensed by the audacity of Trump and Blanche in creating the new fund and Trump’s tax immunity that Blanche declared the recent fund “dead.” Yet, despite an invitation from Eastern District of Virginia Judge Leonie Brinkema to make this commitment in writing under penalty of perjury, he declined, even as Trump keeps touting the fund as a “great idea” and enjoying tax immunity with his new status unprecedented in U.S. history. On July 13, Southern District of Florida Judge Kathleen Williams blasted the deal for violating the fundamental constitutional requirement of adversity between the litigants.
In Blanche’s July 15 committee hearing, Democratic members asked the nominee piercing questions, which he would not clearly answer. Few GOP members lodged probing queries. However, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has publicly stated that Jan. 6 rioters’ attacks on the Capitol and police “cross a red line.” For example, he properly torpedoed Trump’s attempts to confirm Ed Martin as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia because of this nominee’s Jan. 6 activities. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) posed cogent questions about Blanche’s participation in the Trump fund and tax immunity settlement deal. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who has vigorously probed and rejected unqualified judicial nominees whom Democratic and GOP presidents tapped, should raise analogous problems regarding Blanche’s qualifications, especially his weak commitment to the rule of law, the nominee’s very questionable prosecution of Trump enemies, and Blanche’s overriding fealty to Trump. On Monday, Cornyn stated he would only support Blanche’s confirmation if the nominee, in writing, rescinded Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund and confined the scope of Trump’s tax-audit immunity.
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There are four major ways the nominee is disqualified. First, Blanche celebrates the Jan. 6 rioters, who attacked the Capitol and police. Second, the nominee seemingly broke a promise to senators. For instance, when Tillis requested Blanche to pledge that no DOJ investigations “would be politically motivated,” the nominee said, “I commit to that.” However, numerous situations apparently suggest that he repeatedly broke this promise. When Trump requested that the DOJ pursue his political enemies, Blanche seemed to eagerly comply. One recent example is the frivolous prosecution of Comey, whom the DOJ charged with threatening Trump’s life when he posted a picture of seashells shaped like ‘‘86 47.’’ Third, Blanche violated DOJ ethics standards by not recusing from Trump-related personal matters. Fourth, Blanche’s actions debased the DOJ and eroded its post-Watergate commitment to independence. In short, Blanche makes the DOJ an instrument for Trump’s will, thus defying its legacy of independence.
Finally, Cornyn proffered a valuable standard for evaluating Blanche’s nomination. The lawmaker stated he ”wanted to be confident that Blanche appreciated his potential role as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, [because] the attorney general is not the president’s private lawyer.” Cornyn must find that the nominee has failed to satisfy his standard, Tillis should realize that Blanche has crossed his red line, and Kennedy needs to recognize that Blanche is not qualified to serve as attorney general. In sum, all senators should reject this highly flawed nominee, but at least two of these three senators must vote no to defeat Blanche’s misguided nomination.
Carl Tobias is a University of Richmond law professor.