The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as President Trump's attorney general in a 50-49 vote Saturday, with two Republican defections making a Louisiana senator's last-minute support the margin between confirmation and defeat.
Blanche, the 51-year-old Colorado native who has served as acting attorney general since April 2, cleared the chamber by the narrowest margin possible after Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine broke ranks to join every Senate Democrat in opposition. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was absent due to ongoing health issues, which meant Blanche could not afford to lose more than two Republican votes, and he lost exactly two.
The deciding vote came from Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who announced his support on the Senate floor at the final hour despite publicly faulting Blanche for what he described as poor judgment on key controversies at the Justice Department. Fox News reported that Cassidy's last-minute announcement effectively sealed the confirmation after weeks of uncertainty over whether the nomination had the votes to survive.
Cassidy's path to a "yes" was anything but clean. The Louisiana Republican criticized Blanche for what he called poor judgment in approving a controversial $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, a pool of money authorized by a May 19 Justice Department order, and for exempting Trump, his family, and his business entities from IRS audits as part of a settlement of a lawsuit the president filed against the tax agency. Cassidy also faulted the DOJ under Blanche's leadership for targeting the president's political enemies.
But after lodging those complaints, Cassidy still concluded he would vote to confirm.
As the Associated Press reported, Cassidy framed his decision not as an endorsement of the administration's conduct but as a practical choice about who should lead the Justice Department.
"Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this. But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general, who may not run the department effectively under President Trump."
Cassidy added a pointed qualifier, telling colleagues the vote was "not a referendum on President Trump" but "a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances." That framing gave the senator room to register dissatisfaction with the DOJ's direction while still delivering the vote the White House needed.
Cassidy's own political standing adds context. He voted to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection following Jan. 6, 2021, and lost his primary race in May after Trump endorsed his opponent. A senator with nothing left to lose politically still chose to hand the president a win, a sign that even Blanche's Republican critics saw the alternative as worse.
Murkowski and Collins announced ahead of the vote that they would not support Blanche. Both cited his handling of documents related to convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump-IRS settlement, and what they described as an increasingly politicized Justice Department that has repeatedly gone after the president's political enemies.
Murkowski was direct about her concerns. "The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration," she said, according to Fox News.
Their defections were not a surprise. The weeks-long standoff between GOP holdouts and the White House over Blanche's nomination had already signaled that the confirmation would come down to the wire. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination earlier in the week on a 12-10 party-line vote, with every Democrat on the panel voting no.
The controversy that nearly sank Blanche centered on a Justice Department order signed May 19 while he served as acting attorney general. That order did two things: it created a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, and it granted Trump, his family, and his business entities immunity from IRS audits as part of the settlement of the president's lawsuit against the tax agency.
Both provisions drew sharp scrutiny from Republican senators who otherwise supported the administration. Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina demanded a written document affirming that the fund was dead and clarifying whether the president and his family were permanently shielded from future IRS audits. Their demands delayed the confirmation vote.
Blanche tried to defuse the issue at his July 15 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, declaring the fund "dead." National Review reported that Republican holdouts extracted partial concessions from the administration, including written confirmation from Blanche that the audit immunity for Trump and his family was narrower than originally interpreted.
Cornyn, who ultimately voted to confirm, offered a pragmatic rationale. "I think the DOJ needs Senate-confirmed leadership to prevent some of the chaos and dysfunction over there, and I think Blanche is as good as you're going to get," he said.
That is not exactly a ringing endorsement. But it captures the calculation that several Republican senators appeared to make: Blanche had liabilities, but leaving the Justice Department under indefinite acting leadership carried its own risks. Opposition from across the aisle was a foregone conclusion, which meant the only question was whether enough Republicans would hold together.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa spoke ahead of the vote to make the affirmative case for Blanche. He pointed to Blanche's record leading the department since April and his performance before the committee.
"Mr. Blanche is nominated to one of the most important offices in our country, and he has shown that he's up to that task. His impressive background and the presentation at our hearing in the Judiciary Committee are proof that he's led the Justice Department with distinction and is well suited to continue doing that."
Grassley pressed the point further, telling colleagues that "a vote for Todd Blanche is a vote for the safety of the American people."
Trump elevated Blanche, his former personal lawyer, from deputy attorney general to acting attorney general on April 2, after firing Pam Bondi. The Washington Examiner noted the confirmation came just ahead of the August recess, giving the administration Senate-confirmed leadership at the Justice Department before lawmakers left town.
Blanche responded to the vote with a statement. "I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation's 88th Attorney General," he said.
All Senate Democrats voted against Blanche. Sen. Dick Durbin argued the moment demanded an attorney general "above reproach, who is clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government." The unified Democratic opposition, combined with Murkowski's and Collins's defections, meant the outcome rested on a single senator's conscience.
The confirmation's razor-thin margin underscores a pattern in this Congress: the administration's nominees face near-total Democratic opposition, which means even small Republican fractures can become existential threats to a nomination. The recent confirmation of the CDC director followed a similar path, scraping through with narrow Republican support after months of delay.
Blanche is now the 88th attorney general of the United States. He got there by one vote, with concessions wrung from his own side, and with a decisive supporter who called him imperfect in the same breath as voting yes.
Washington rewards the people who show up and win the count. Blanche showed up. Barely.
Read the full report from the New York Post.
