GOP Senator Defends His Deciding Vote in Todd Blanche AG Confirmation: ‘There’s a Lot of Positive Things to Say’ About Him

A Republican Senator who cast the deciding vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General defended his decision amid heavy backlash from Trump administration opponents.

In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was confronted about his crucial vote by moderator Margaret Brennan.

“You were specific in some of your concerns, and I know acting Attorney General Blanche now, who’s set for that confirmation had posted documents, including he rescinded the order to create the anti-weaponization fund, and he had an unsigned statement in which he narrowed the terms of the Trump-IRS protections that you had objected to,” Brennan said to Cassidy. “Now they’ll apply just to [President Donald] Trump, Don Jr., Eric and the Trump Organization. Senator [Dick] Durbin, who’s the top Democrat on Judiciary, said these new clarifications-they’re unenforceable. Is he correct?”

“[I]f you’re looking for a black or white decision here, you’re not going to find it,” Cassidy responded. “This is a gradation of gray. But what I’m told as regards to the anti-weaponization fund, if you put it in the context of the political environment, the judicial environment, the process you would have to go back through in order to reinstate that effectively is dead. Now, John Cornyn, a former state attorney general in Texas, was comfortable with it.”

“It took him a while to get there, though,” Brennan said, adding, “Basically said we can’t take his word for it.”

“It took him a while to get there, but the fact that John did was important to me to a certain extent. I’m relying on others that are bringing me information, and I have to trust them on that. Not everything, but some of that, and I trust John on that.”

“And on giving his family protection from IRS probes?” Brennan asked.

“That’s totally wrong,” Cassidy said. “Totally wrong. And so I will go back. This is not a black or white decision. That is wrong, and no American should be targeted by the law, but no American should be above the law, and that, frankly, almost weighed to vote no.”

Some observers believed Cassidy might defy the president given that Trump campaigned heavily against him ahead of his recent Republican primary — which Cassidy lost. Still, Cassidy ultimately made the decision to vote for Blanche — despite his reservations.

“Let’s look at the positive,” Cassidy told Brennan. There’s three aspects to the attorney general. The attorney general is supposed to give advice to the president, supposed to run the Department of Justice and is supposed to make sure that the U.S. attorneys nationwide are doing their job. It really weighs strongly in his favor when I speak to my U.S. attorneys in Louisiana, and I spoke specifically to David Courcelle and Kurt Wall, and they said, listen, we have calls once weekly between our office and DOJ, and they give metrics for our prosecutors, and each individual prosecutor is weighed on that metric, and we’ve had our focus restricted down to fighting violent crime, human and drug trafficking, and going after fraud in programs like Medicare and Medicaid. And if I need extra resources to bring a case home, we do it. And if there’s a drug kingpin, we get the resources to go after them, and- and our morale is up, not despite the accountability, because of the accountability. Now, if you want a DOJ which is actually doing its job, you need stable leadership, and you need leadership which is effective, and in that which is making the greatest difference in my life, in your life, in the American people’s life. There’s a lot of positive things to say about Todd Blanche.”

“And you are confident that he will uphold the constitution with the upcoming elections?” Brennan asked. “There are Democrats saying he may not.”

“Well, of course, there’s always this existential anxiety,” Cassidy said. “But I am as confident as you can be about the future … I cannot predict the future, and this is not a black or white decision. But I’m confident on that.”

Watch above, via CBS.

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