Senate Judiciary Committee approves Blanche’s nomination for attorney general
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general to the Senate on a party-line vote, after he managed to assuage concerns of two key Republican committee members about President Donald Trump’s so-called anti-weaponization fund.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized Blanche in his opening statement at the meeting, saying he has “aided and abetted the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States.” Blanche, he said, “continues to operate as the president’s personal lawyer, treating the Justice Department like a law firm serving one client: the president.”
Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina overcame their misgivings about Blanche over Trump’s deal with the Internal Revenue Service to settle the president’s lawsuit against the agency. The deal, orchestrated by the Justice Department, offered tax audit immunity to Trump and his family and initially included a $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund to compensate people who claim to have been unfairly prosecuted by the federal government.
Blanche repeatedly declared that the fund was “dead” but refused to commit to formally rescinding it. The DOJ also resisted repeated calls from Cornyn and Tillis to put changes to the IRS deal in writing as a condition for their support for Blanche.
With the narrow GOP majority on the committee, Blanche could not afford to lose a single Republican vote. His nomination appeared to be in peril over an extended dispute with the two Republican senators about the settlement, which resulted in the postponement of a July 30 committee vote.
Blanche issued a formal order terminating the fund late on Sunday, which Cornyn and Tillis declared was sufficient, despite the scope of the documents seeming to fall short of their demands.
In his remarks before the vote, Durbin addressed the settlement deal, accusing Blanche of lying under oath when he denied telling the senator, prior to his confirmation hearing, that he made a mistake by setting up the fund.
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Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
