The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines Tuesday to send Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination to the full Senate floor, but a handful of uncommitted Republican senators could still narrow his path to confirmation.
The party-line vote cleared Blanche's most significant procedural obstacle only after weeks of tense negotiations between the Trump administration and two Republican holdouts, Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had refused to back the nominee until the Department of Justice put key concessions in writing. Both senators voted yes Tuesday after DOJ formally agreed to end the controversial $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund and to limit the scope of a sweeping Trump tax audit settlement.
Blanche, who has already been serving as acting attorney general since April, now faces a full Senate floor vote that Senate Majority Leader John Thune could schedule as early as this week, before the chamber recesses until mid-September. The math is tight. With Senator Mitch McConnell hospitalized and absent, Blanche can afford no more than two Republican defections if every Democrat votes no.
Four Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Curtis of Utah, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, have not yet committed to voting yes on the floor.
The weeks-long standoff centered on two issues that Cornyn, Tillis, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley all described as matters of common sense. The first was the Anti-Weaponization Fund, a $1.8 billion DOJ settlement fund that Tillis called a "payout for punks" and an "insult to police" injured during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Tillis declared the fund "dead" after the vote.
The second was a Trump tax audit settlement whose precise terms remain unclear. DOJ provided a written agreement to limit its scope, though the document itself has not been made public.
Breitbart reported that Blanche formally rescinded the Anti-Weaponization Fund order on Sunday night, two days before the committee vote. The New York Post reported that Blanche's rescission stated the fund "shall have no force or effect."
Cornyn framed his vote as conditional trust in DOJ's word. He told reporters the updated DOJ language "reaffirms" what Blanche had said under oath a month earlier during his confirmation hearing, and warned that he "expects the Justice Department to live up" to that commitment in future litigation.
"My vote to advance Mr. Blanche's nomination goes beyond this document: We need a stabilizing force at the Department of Justice."
That was Cornyn's fuller statement, as reported by the New York Post. Grassley, for his part, expressed frustration that the negotiations dragged on as long as they did.
"I don't think it should have taken as long as it did to get it resolved. I don't have any way of knowing everybody that was involved in it, but it's just a crime that it took so long to work out."
Grassley's irritation was directed at the process, not the outcome. The chairman had shared Cornyn's and Tillis's concerns about the fund and the tax settlement from the start. That Tillis had previously pushed to redirect the fund toward fraud enforcement underscored how seriously Senate Republicans viewed the issue.
Every Democrat on the committee voted no. Senator Adam Schiff of California led the opposition's argument, framing Blanche's problem not as a question of competence but of loyalty.
"The fundamental problem with Todd Blanche is not that he's inexperienced, not that he's not capable, and not that he's not intelligent. He just can't do it."
Schiff argued that Blanche "has never been able to shed his role as criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump." Blanche represented Trump during the 2024 hush money trial in New York before being nominated for the nation's top law enforcement post.
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee's top Democrat, took a different tack. He argued the DOJ agreement that won over Cornyn and Tillis was legally meaningless, "not signed by the parties to the settlement agreement" and "therefore unenforceable." Durbin claimed the Anti-Weaponization Fund could theoretically be revived "15 minutes" after Blanche's confirmation vote.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut bolstered that argument by citing a social media post from conservative lawyer Mike Howell, who shared Blanche's post containing the terms of the DOJ deal along with his own comment: "Can be undone after Tuesday."
Blumenthal's conclusion was blunt.
"We don't need to say the quiet part out loud. The president is screaming it."
The Democratic argument boils down to a claim that the written concessions are window dressing, that DOJ made promises it can reverse the moment Blanche is confirmed. But that argument cuts both ways. If the concessions are so easily reversible, then Cornyn and Tillis extracted them knowing they would hold DOJ accountable on the record. The written commitment creates a paper trail. Whether DOJ honors it is a separate question, and one Cornyn made clear he intends to monitor.
The committee vote was the easier hurdle. The full Senate presents a narrower path. With McConnell absent and all Democrats expected to oppose, Blanche needs at least 50 of the remaining 52 Republican senators. Collins, Murkowski, Curtis, and Cassidy have not publicly committed. Just The News reported that Collins and Murkowski were "reportedly not 100% committed" to voting yes.
Cornyn told reporters Wednesday that he has been in talks with Collins and Murkowski to gauge their support but made clear the decision is theirs.
"I cast my ballot here in the committee, and they'll have to make their own decisions on the floor."
President Trump voiced his support for Blanche directly. "Todd Blanche is a very, very good man, and he shouldn't be in the middle of this," Trump said, as reported by the Daily Mail. "He should get approved because you will never get anybody like him."
The White House appeared to take the vote seriously. One individual in the committee room observed that "the entire White House [staff] is here", a sign the administration understood how close the margin was.
Outside groups mobilized against the nomination as well. The Not Above the Law Coalition, a group of more than 150 organizations, issued a statement urging the full Senate to reject Blanche. "Blanche has one client, and it's not the American people," the coalition's co-chairs said. "Committee Republicans just chose not to see it. The full Senate now has the final word, and every senator should use it to reject this nomination."
One moment in the committee room stood apart from the political maneuvering. Dani Bensky, a Jeffrey Epstein survivor who testified before the committee last month on behalf of other survivors, positioned herself in the front row directly across from the lawmakers. After the votes were cast in Blanche's favor, she could be seen sinking far down into her seat.
The source did not elaborate on what specific concerns Epstein survivors have raised about Blanche's nomination. But Bensky's presence, and her visible reaction, added a human dimension to a proceeding otherwise dominated by procedural gamesmanship and partisan talking points. Blanche's confirmation path has drawn opposition from unexpected corners, including Senator John Fetterman, who broke with some in his party on other issues but opposed this nomination.
Grassley acknowledged that the confirmation fight had already dragged on too long. The chairman's frustration with the pace of negotiations reflected a broader reality: Senate Republicans agree on the destination, a confirmed attorney general, but spent weeks arguing over the terms of the trip.
That internal debate is now resolved at the committee level. The Senate has shown it can close ranks on Trump-related policy fights when the stakes demand it. Whether it does so again for Blanche depends on four senators who have not yet said yes.
The DOJ put its promises in writing. Cornyn and Tillis took the deal. Now the full Senate gets to decide whether the man who defended the president in a Manhattan courtroom can be trusted to lead the department that serves 330 million Americans. Democrats say he cannot separate the two roles. Republicans say the country needs a confirmed attorney general, not an acting one. The vote, when it comes, will settle the argument, at least on paper.
Washington has no shortage of written commitments that evaporate the moment they become inconvenient. If Cornyn and Tillis intend to hold DOJ to its word, they will need to do more than file it away. Accountability does not enforce itself.
