GOP Holdouts Drop Objections to Blanche as AG After DOJ Kills $1.8B Fund

Today’s Focus

Two Republican senators who had put acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s permanent nomination in doubt announced Monday they will now vote to advance it, clearing the way for a Senate Judiciary Committee vote Tuesday.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), both retiring in January, said in a joint statement that their objections were resolved after Blanche signed what they called a “legally enforceable document” formally ending a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” according to The Guardian.

The fund and a related agreement had grown out of a settlement in President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the unauthorized leak of his tax returns. Under the original deal, the money would have gone to Trump allies the administration says were wrongly investigated, and Trump and his family would have received broad protection from future tax audits.

The judge overseeing the underlying case criticized the settlement in blunt terms, writing that the Justice Department had not made a good-faith effort to defend the government and that the arrangement appeared “collusive,” per The Guardian’s account of the ruling.

Blanche’s written order terminates the fund and narrows the tax-audit protection Trump would have received. Vox reported that the concessions extracted by Cornyn and Tillis touch only a fraction of Blanche’s broader restructuring of the department.

Republicans hold a two-seat majority on the Judiciary Committee, so the votes of Cornyn and Tillis were pivotal. Blanche, Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney, has been running the department in an acting capacity and is now expected to receive a full Senate floor vote in the coming days.

The Debate

Supporters argue

Cornyn and Tillis framed their reversal as a substantive win. In their joint statement, quoted by The Guardian, the senators said they were “pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund” and said the written commitment made their concerns enforceable rather than rhetorical.

White House allies argue that Blanche, already confirmed once by the Senate as deputy attorney general, is qualified for the top job and that Trump is entitled to name his own attorney general. Judiciary Committee Republicans have noted that Blanche has been running the department for months without incident and that keeping an “acting” leader indefinitely weakens the department.

Conservative commentators point to Blanche’s written commitments as proof that internal Republican pressure can shape administration policy. They argue the terminated fund and the narrowed audit protection show the confirmation process worked to check an arrangement a federal judge had already criticized, and that further delay would only stall routine department operations.

Critics argue

Vox, in a column by Ian Millhiser, argued the Republican resistance was “never serious,” writing that Cornyn and Tillis “extract[ed] some minor concessions” while leaving intact the broader transformation of DOJ lawyers into what Millhiser called “Trump’s personal advocates and enforcers.”

Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have opposed the nomination outright, pointing to Blanche’s prior role as Trump’s personal defense lawyer and arguing he cannot credibly oversee investigations touching the president or his family. They have cited the federal judge’s finding that the original IRS settlement appeared collusive as evidence of a pattern.

Civil-liberties groups and legal-ethics scholars have raised similar concerns about the fund’s origins. Critics note that both retiring senators face no future primary from Trump-aligned challengers, and argue that if even they will not hold the line, meaningful Senate oversight of the department has collapsed.

What the experts say

The Congressional Research Service has long noted that attorney general nominees, unlike most Cabinet picks, historically face heightened Senate scrutiny because the role blends law enforcement with political appointment. Blanche’s path differs from that pattern: he is the first former personal criminal-defense lawyer to a sitting president to be nominated for the position, according to reporting compiled by The Guardian and Vox.

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law professor and former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, has written on Lawfare that written commitments extracted during confirmations are only as strong as the political willingness of Congress to enforce them later. He has cautioned that internal DOJ orders can be rescinded by the same official who issued them.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan legal institute at NYU Law, has tracked post-Watergate norms limiting White House contacts with DOJ on specific cases and reported that several of those norms have been formally revised or dropped in the current administration.

By the Numbers

$1.8 billion: size of the “anti-weaponization fund” that Blanche’s written order formally terminates, according to The Guardian.

2: Republican senators, Cornyn and Tillis, whose reversal clears the Judiciary Committee vote, per Vox.

2-vote: current Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Vox.

January 2027: month in which both Cornyn and Tillis are set to leave the Senate after declining to seek reelection, per The Guardian.

1: federal judge who publicly described the underlying Trump-IRS settlement as appearing “collusive,” according to The Guardian’s summary of the ruling.

0: Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who have announced support for Blanche’s nomination, based on public statements compiled by Vox.