Blanche Wins Votes For Senate Confirmation

Embattled attorney general nominee Todd Blanche secured his 50th Senate vote from Sen. Bill Cassidy, teeing him up to be confirmed as soon as Friday.

“This is not a referendum on President Trump,” Cassidy said from the Senate floor. “It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche. … All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche.”

The Louisiana Republican’s support is a major win for President Donald Trump and Blanche, who is serving as acting attorney general and was nominated nearly two months ago to permanently replace ousted predecessor Pam Bondi.

Securing those votes was no easy feat as Blanche and his White House allies had to cajole a slate of wary Senate Republicans, who privately unloaded on Blanche over the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” he helped broker as part of a settlement between Trump and the IRS.

Cassidy’s vote was critical after Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced earlier Friday that she would oppose confirming Blanche.

The two GOP senators were the final holdouts. The duo — who met with Blanche privately Wednesday afternoon — had expressed concerns about Blanche’s potential conflict of interest as Trump’s former personal attorney and the administration’s reluctance to kill the payout fund.

The stakes going into the Wednesday meeting were clear: Blanche needed to persuade either senator that he was fit to lead the Justice Department if he was going to win confirmation. Just after the meeting, they were spotted talking with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who cut a deal with Blanche earlier this month to rein in the Trump settlement, as well as members of GOP leadership.

Cassidy, speaking from the Senate floor, said he spoke several times with Cornyn, Murkowski and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). He also said he had spoken with Blanche several times since a Judiciary Committee vote Tuesday, including speaking with him just before he announced his support on the Senate floor.

Cassidy said he didn’t think Blanche was perfect, saying he showed “poor judgment” with his involvement in the payout fund and the IRS settlement. But he argued that the Justice Department needed a Senate-confirmed attorney general with the standing to potentially push back on Trump.

“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 and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said.

Blanche can only lose two Republicans and still be confirmed, given unified opposition from Democrats and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health-related absence. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced Tuesday that she would oppose Blanche.

Cassidy — a scorned lame duck who lost reelection after Trump endorsed his Republican primary opponent — is essentially handing the president his next attorney general five years after he voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges following the 2021 Capitol riot.

Cassidy’s support comes as some GOP colleagues, granted anonymity to speak candidly, had predicted earlier this week that the Louisiana Republican was a “no.” But Cassidy, despite Trump’s decision to end his career over the conviction vote, has voted for every Trump Cabinet pick during his second administration and has generally supported the president’s agenda over the past two years.

The Senate is hoping to confirm Blanche Friday and leave town for the five-week recess, but absent a deal with Democrats, the process could drag out for days.

Blanche’s confirmation would be a major victory for Trump, who has faced a rocky stretch with Senate Republicans this year as they’ve rejected his pressure to eliminate the filibuster and pass a GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act. Trump fumed last week over the possibility that Senate Republicans could reject his pick, threatening to revive the Anti-Weaponization Fund and renominate Blanche in January — after Cassidy and other critics are gone.

But Blanche was able to win over two crucial senators — Tillis and Cornyn — by agreeing to put guardrails on the IRS settlement, securing the support he needed to get through the Judiciary Committee.

Those two senators, like Cassidy, will not return next Congress after clashing with Trump. Tillis announced his retirement last year after breaking with Trump over the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill,” while Cornyn lost his primary earlier this year after Trump endorsed GOP opponent Ken Paxton.

Cassidy referenced his own bumps with Trump, saying the two “have a history” but “that history does not matter one bit.”

“I will be criticized for this vote,” he added. “What’s new? But the people of Louisiana can be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue and to make the right decision.”