Todd Blanche looks set to become America’s next attorney general. Earlier this week, two disgruntled Republican senators, Thom Tillis (NC) and John Cornyn (TX), lifted their holds on Blanche’s nomination, clearing the way for him through the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? President Donald Trump needs Republicans he can work with, yet too often he gets disloyalty and anonymous sniping from those supposedly on his side, especially in the Senate.
Senate Republicans recently bucked Trump’s budget, which would have helped secure the border.
They’ve stalled his election security measures mere months before the midterms.
Now, they almost derailed his nominee for attorney general.
No surprise to find that neither Tillis nor Cornyn is running for reelection this fall, with Tillis retiring and Cornyn having gotten thumped in his Texas primary. That means neither will have to answer to the voters for their patent obstructionism.
The Constitution says the Senate is there to “advise and consent” on the president’s Cabinet choices, not throw a monkey wrench in the process over the grumblings of 2% of its members.
Yet this is what Tillis and Cornyn did until recently. And given how central the Justice Department is to both law enforcement and Trump’s agenda, their showboating was most unwelcome.
For decades, the DOJ was gradually remade into an authoritarian organ of left-wing cultural priorities.
President Barack Obama empowered its Civil Rights Division to ruthlessly enforce an early version of the woke agenda. Dubious legal concepts like “disparate action” were weaponized to advance the interests of aggrieved identity groups at the expense of everyone else.
President Joe Biden unleashed the DOJ’s Antitrust Division against businesses the government didn’t like. If you were an American company, you were fortunate not to get sued on some flimsy pretense during the Biden years.
All the while, the border was wide open, and too many hardened criminals were being set free. The Department of Justice? More like the Department of Social Justice.
Conservatives had been warning for years that the DOJ needed serious reform if its proper function in government was to be restored. When Trump was reelected in 2024, he made this one of his top priorities.
Dozens of immigration judges were appointed to expedite the deportations of hardened criminals. Environmentalist lawfare was abandoned, letting energy companies and blue-collar workers alike breathe easier.
Blatantly racist DEI offices found themselves in the crosshairs of civil rights law. The anti-business crusade was called off in favor of targeted antitrust actions seeking settlements instead of show trials.
This dramatic climbdown has been one of Trump’s quietest and most remarkable successes. Yet given the extent of the Left’s legal infiltration, and the scale of the change that is needed, it hasn’t come without turmoil.
Whether by turning over hundreds of unreliable staffers or occasionally sending mixed signals, large-scale institutional change is always messy, and the Trump Justice Department is no exception.
That’s why we need Blanche as America’s next attorney general. As an experienced prosecutor from the Southern District of New York’s violent-crimes division and a seasoned attorney, he’ll bring a tough but steady hand to an agency in flux.
At the DOJ, Blanche has proven to be a smart, pragmatic populist. The department took on Big Tech but without ever seeming reflexively anti-business. It helped greenlight the recent Hewlett Packard-Juniper merger to create a globally scaled American tech company that can compete with Huawei and take on the Chinese Communist Party. It helped OK the recent Paramount-Warner Bros. merger to challenge Netflix and give pro-family content more airtime.
Blanche’s stance has always been: Forget the drama, and let’s make some good policy. Now, he’ll bring that same ethos to the attorney general’s office.
THE SENATE’S CHOICE IS CLEAR: CONFIRM TODD BLANCHE OR IGNORE THE VOTERS
The senators stalling Blanche’s confirmation are more annoyed with Trump than with Blanche. Yet by throwing this legislative tantrum, they risked playing into the woke agenda by foiling efforts to get the DOJ back on track.
Let’s be thankful they both saw the light. It’s time for the full Senate to confirm Blanche to be the next attorney general.
Matt Gaetz is a former Republican congressman from Florida.