Senate Judiciary Committee Postpones Vote on Todd Blanche’s AG Nomination After GOP Senators Object

Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

The Senate Judiciary Committee will postpone the vote on Todd Blanche’s Attorney General nomination, originally scheduled for Thursday, after objections from several GOP senators on the committee remained unsatisfied.

Blanche previously served as Deputy Attorney General during Pam Bondi’s tenure, and President Donald Trump appointed him to acting Attorney General after her ouster.

Keeping the gig on a permanent basis, however, requires Senate confirmation, and Blanche has drawn notably vocal criticism, if not outright hostility, from thousands of former DOJ employees, former judges, attorneys, bar associations, and other legal advocacy groups — plus even some pointed public commentary from the Republican Senators who will decide his fate.

Blanche’s role in the purported “settlement” of a complaint Trump and his family filed against the IRS is one of the main stumbling blocks for Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), both of whom are leaving the Senate in January after losing a primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger and deciding to retire after clashing with the president and facing similar threats he would back a primary opponent, respectively.

The settlement agreement shielded the Trumps from any liability for tax violations and created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that was swiftly denounced as a “slush fund.”

The Democrats on the committee are all voting against Blanche so he can only afford to lose one Republican senator to survive the committee vote and get a chance for a full Senate vote, giving both Cornyn and Tillis an individual veto power to block the nomination.

On Wednesday, Cornyn told reporters he would only support Blanche’s nomination if the DOJ revised the settlement agreement in writing to make it clear the “anti-weaponization fund” was dead and to clarify that it was “not designed to provide prospective immunity from tax audits.”

Later in the day, Cornyn cancelled a meeting he had with Blanche as his conditions about revising the IRS settlement had not been met.

Also on Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) met with Cornyn and Tillis in the Texas Senator’s office to discuss Blanche’s nomination.

It does not appear that meeting was successful.

At 8:25 p.m. ET, CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins tweeted that the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Blanche scheduled for Thursday “was just postponed.”

Collins added a statement provided by a committee spokesperson, which made clear Cornyn and Tillis’ objections were the cause:

Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement. Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report Attorney General-nominee Todd Blanche, who is highly qualified for the job.

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