By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – Todd Blanche will walk into his confirmation hearing on Wednesday carrying baggage that might have sunk past attorney general nominees.
That includes a client list featuring the president who nominated him, a since-shelved $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that many Republicans called reckless and a stack of demands from Democrats, former prosecutors and Jeffrey Epstein survivors urging senators to vote no after they say he botched the release of the Epstein files.
And yet, Republican insiders expect him to easily win confirmation. The outcome will determine who leads the Justice Department at a time when it is pursuing prosecutions of President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries and facing questions about its independence from the White House.
“He’s on a glide path to confirmation,” said Mike Davis, a former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley who remains an influential outside voice in the Trump orbit.
Davis, who is helping Blanche prepare for the hearing, predicted that Blanche would be confirmed before the August recess.
REPUBLICAN CONFIDENCE GROWS
That confidence reflects a broader shift in how Senate Republicans view a nomination that looked shakier just weeks ago, when the anti-weaponization fund set off one of the party’s few open revolts against the Trump administration. Those familiar with the process say Blanche’s pledge to abandon the fund, paired with a blitz of meetings with senators, has calmed much of that unrest.
On Monday, a federal judge in Miami ruled that the settlement that had created the fund and shielded Trump and his family from IRS audits was never a genuine legal dispute between two parties, effectively nullifying the agreement two days before Blanche’s high-stakes hearing.
Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, was confirmed as deputy attorney general in March 2025 to run the department’s day-to-day operations — a role allies cast as the steadying hand at Justice and critics call cover for a Trump loyalist. He became acting attorney general this spring after Pam Bondi’s departure, and has since echoed Trump’s false election-fraud claims while overseeing a department that has pursued prosecutions of the president’s perceived adversaries, including former FBI Director James Comey.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. Blanche and his allies have said he is righting the wrongs of previous administrations and focusing on reducing violent crime.
Mike Fragoso, a former top Senate aide who served former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary leaders, said Blanche’s position as acting attorney general makes his confirmation more likely.
“I think they probably recognize he has the job and is going to keep doing the job,” Fragoso said of Senate Republicans.
KEY SENATORS REMAIN UNDECIDED
Blanche’s confirmation hinges on keeping the support of each Republican on the committee. That includes senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, both of whom are in their last months in office and both of whom have not said publicly which way they will vote.
Tillis, after meeting with Blanche in late June, said on CNN that he had a “positive predisposition” toward him, so long as the fund was made “inoperative.” His office did not respond to a request for comment. Blanche has told lawmakers the fund is dead, but the department has declined to put that in writing and has refused to unwind the tax-immunity provisions tied to it.
Cornyn said on X last month that he had a positive meeting with Blanche, who committed to briefing him on the tax-immunity agreement, and that he would withhold judgment until after the hearing. His office declined to say whether that briefing had taken place.
Advocates for Epstein survivors have seized on that uncertainty, erecting billboards in North Carolina and Texas accusing Blanche of betraying victims, along with one in New Orleans aimed at Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican.
“Blanche betrayed Epstein survivors,” read one billboard in Charlotte, North Carolina. Another billboard in New Orleans read, “Blanche protects predators.”
Blanche has defended the Justice Department’s handling of the release of the Epstein files, calling any identification of victims accidental and promising to hold perpetrators accountable if and when evidence allows.
Fragoso said that based on conversations he has held with people on Capitol Hill, concerns over the weaponization fund and Epstein are unlikely to sink the candidacy.
Davis agreed: “The holdup was the weaponization fund, and that is over. I’d be surprised if he lost any votes.”
It was not immediately clear how the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential member of the Judiciary Committee who had signaled his support for Blanche after meeting with him, would affect the confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
CRITICISM FROM MULTIPLE FRONTS
Blanche faces criticism from multiple directions. Some far-right activists and Trump allies say he has moved too slowly to dismiss charges or secure pardons for defendants in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Democrats argue he has simply carried out Trump’s wishes rather than acting independently. More than 1,200 former Justice Department officials from both parties signed a letter warning that his tenure has already damaged the agency and the country’s public safety.
Senate Democrats led by Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island have filed a wave of records requests and oversight letters challenging Blanche’s conduct as acting attorney general.
“Republican senators who vote to confirm Blanche are deluding themselves if they believe he will do anything but accelerate the weaponization of the justice system,” Whitehouse wrote in an op-ed last month.
Democrats are expected to press Blanche aggressively at the hearing on his independence, his judgment and the fund.
“This administration has been pretty combative in hearings,” Fragoso said. “I’d be surprised if he takes attacks from the Democrats lying down.”
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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