Aug. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate confirmed Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump‘s former personal defense attorney, as U.S. attorney general early Saturday morning.
Two Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the confirmation. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., missed the vote.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., was a critical vote because he had raised concerns about Blanche. He, along with John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said they were uncomfortable with the politicization of the Department of Justice, as well as the controversial settlement between the president and the IRS in which Trump was given $1.8 billion fund to compensate people that he believed were victims of political prosecutions.
All three of them voted to confirm Blanche.
Cassidy said he chose to vote for Blanche because Trump might nominate someone worse.
“The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Politico reported Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “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.”
The vote tally was 50-49 at 4:31 a.m. Saturday. The Senate then left for a five-week recess.
Blanche has been acting attorney general since Trump fired Pam Bondi from the position in April.
“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,” Blanche said in a post on X. “I am grateful to the Senate for staying late to complete this process.”
Not everyone supported Blanche’s nomination.
“The problem with confirming Todd Blanche is that he has never been able to shed his role as criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump. He just can’t do it,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote to advance the nomination. “He will never do what’s best for the American people. He will only do what’s best for Donald Trump, and you cannot leave someone like that as the nation’s No. 1 law enforcement official.”
“The biggest concern is whether he is now going to be emboldened to go even more gung-ho on Trump’s campaign of using the Justice Department for retribution,” former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson told NBC News in an interview before the confirmation. “There are no guardrails.”
“America is safer with Todd Blanche at the helm of the Justice Department,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he disagrees.
“It was a grave mistake for the Senate to approve Todd Blanche as the next Attorney General,” he said in a post on X. “If there is ever a moment in history when we need an AG above reproach, who is dedicated to ending corruption, it is right now. This nation deserves an Attorney General who loves the Constitution more than he loves the President. Sadly, Todd Blanche is not that person.”
