All This Blanche Back And Forth Won’t Matter Much In The End

Any snub of Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general could end up being almost entirely symbolic since, win or lose, the president’s former defense attorney can continue to run the Justice Department.

Trump’s Truth Social announcement that he might pull Blanche’s nomination in the wake of opposition from Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — holding out the possibility of trying to bring it back next year after both men are out of office — left some observers scratching their heads at the point of the whole exercise.

“Why are we here?” asked Eric Columbus, a lawyer who worked in the deputy attorney general’s office during the Obama administration. “It’s likely Blanche could remain as acting attorney general for as long as Trump wants.”

Under a law governing succession in top roles at the Justice Department, Blanche, who was confirmed last year as deputy attorney general, automatically became the acting AG when Trump fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi in April. That elevation means that, at least officially, Blanche has all the power as an acting attorney general that he would as a full-fledged member of Trump’s Cabinet.

“He currently has all the powers of the attorney general, just has that little word ‘acting’ in front of his title, and I don't think that removing the ‘acting’ would give him any formal powers that he doesn't currently have,” said Columbus, now an editor with the legal website Lawfare.

There’s some disagreement among legal scholars about whether Blanche could run DOJ indefinitely as acting AG or whether another federal law limits his tenure, but Columbus said Blanche could likely serve at least another year as acting.

Trump relied heavily on acting appointees during his first term, taking criticism as the number of acting Cabinet officials approached 50 percent. Some said he was bypassing the confirmation process, while others said the acting status undercut the officials’ stature at their agencies and across the government. Trump dismissed the complaints.

“It’s easier to make moves when they’re acting,”Trump said then. “I like acting because I can move so quickly. It gives me more flexibility.”

If Blanche’s nomination was supposed to give him more sway at DOJ or other agencies and winds up stalled, it could have the opposite result. Instead, the move could become a barometer of Trump’s declining power on Capitol Hill and the consequences of his decisions to cross swords with some veteran GOP senators.

Either way, Blanche’s nomination became a gift to critics of Trump and his Justice Department, allowing them to draw intense attention to their many grievances, including the ultimate stumbling block with Cornyn and Tillis: the waiver Blanche signed absolving Trump, his family and his businesses of all liability for past unpaid taxes.