The biggest sticking point for Blanche’s confirmation has been his efforts to settle a lawsuit that Trump filed against the I.R.S. over the release of his tax returns. Blanche, who had been Trump’s criminal-defense lawyer before joining the Justice Department, helped create a $1.776-billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund that would have opened the door to reparations for January 6th defendants. Even more egregious, Blanche signed a document purporting to absolve Trump, his family members, and his company from what could have amounted to more than a hundred million dollars in tax liability. Weeks later, Trump tapped Blanche for a permanent appointment as attorney general. A federal judge termed the arrangement “collusive” and pronounced herself “extremely troubled” by Blanche’s testimony asserting that the settlement could not be submitted for judicial review. “This answer,” she said, “is, at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous.”
The initial pushback among Republican senators came, not surprisingly, from two lawmakers on their way out of the chamber: John Cornyn, of Texas, who lost his bid for reëlection after Trump declined to endorse him, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, who chose to retire after clashing with Trump. What was striking about the episode was how little Cornyn and Tillis were seeking from Trump, how ferociously Trump contested their efforts, and how few assurances the pair managed to extract before declaring themselves willing to support the nominee. On the anti-weaponization fund, Cornyn and Tillis asked Blanche simply to state in writing what he had already pledged verbally—that the fund was dead. That assurance isn’t worth much; the fund could be revived at any moment, and nothing stops the Justice Department from dispensing funds to supposedly injured parties, even without it. The resolution of the I.R.S. immunity arrangement—an unwarranted and perhaps illegal gift to Trump that would never have been bestowed on an ordinary taxpayer—was even weaker. Cornyn and Tillis didn’t ask that it be revoked. Instead, they secured an unsigned statement from the Justice Department saying that the immunity covers only parties to Trump’s lawsuit, not, as the original document provided, “affiliated or related individuals.”
Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary session offered some glimpses of broader frustration with the Administration. The committee chairman, Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, said of Tillis and Cornyn, “Their concerns about the anti-weaponization fund and the I.R.S. settlement were shared by many, including this senator.” It was, he said, “just a crime that it took so long to work out.” Tillis, for his part, expressed frustration with the Administration’s other excesses. “I’m going to support Mr. Blanche’s nomination, but what I hope I see out of him is a bending of the curve of this absurdity,” he said, citing the Justice Department’s indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, for posting a photograph of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” “Some bonehead in North Carolina thinks that that’s a crime. Well, they better damn sure have information to back it up,” Tillis said. He did not mention that Blanche himself defended the indictment. Committee Democrats were cutting not just about the nominee but about what they described as the cowardice of their colleagues. “I don’t know where this committee goes after it stops being taken seriously, because all you have to be is on the right partisan side to get this committee to roll over and play dead,” Sheldon Whitehouse said. Cory Booker added, “We’re surrendering any shred of integrity left.”
On Tuesday evening, Susan Collins, of Maine, announced that she would vote against Blanche, citing not only the anti-weaponization fund and the I.R.S. deal but also the Justice Department’s unsuccessful efforts to indict two of her Democratic colleagues for posting a video reminding service members of their duty to resist unlawful orders, and what she described as Blanche’s reported promise, in a private phone call with religious groups, that he would “seek to prohibit the mailing of abortion medication to women nationwide.” Perhaps not coincidentally, Collins is the only Republican senator who is running for reëlection in a state that Trump lost in 2024.
Collins’s defection left Blanche in a pinch. With Mitch McConnell ill, he could afford to lose only one more vote. In an effort to placate Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, Blanche had made a two-day visit to her home state last month, dispensing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal cash: a hundred and eighty million dollars to Anchorage, to settle a lawsuit over unfinished work on expanding the city’s port, and another four hundred million dollars to Native tribes, to resolve another lawsuit, over health-care costs. And, for good measure, the department announced that it was settling lawsuits brought by the state against Biden-era regulations limiting oil-and-gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On Tuesday evening, after the Judiciary vote and Collins’s announcement, Davis, the Republican lobbyist, posted on X: “Looks like Alaska Natives are about to get $1.8 billion and IRS immunity.” He added, “Just kidding. Kinda.” But, to the credit of Murkowski, who has repeatedly demonstrated that she has the spine missing from many of her colleagues, she announced Friday morning that she would oppose Blanche. “The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Murkowski said in a statement. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.” In a telling illustration of the degree of distrust between Republican lawmakers and the Administration, Murkowski said that she was “keenly aware” that the slush fund “is only off the table because this nomination is pending and the Senate has leverage. Once we vote, that will end, and there is no telling what the future holds.”
