Donald Trump's pick for Attorney General walked into his Senate confirmation hearing as his former personal defense lawyer, accidentally called the President his friend on live television, and still couldn't get two members of his own party to say they'd vote for him. Day two is already underway, and things are not improving. This is going great.
The Two Republicans Who Could Sink the Whole Thing
The math here is brutally simple. Republicans hold a slim Senate majority. If two of them defect on the Judiciary Committee, Todd Blanche's path to confirmation gets very complicated, very fast. Right now, according to Fox News, the two senators holding the cards are John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and neither one will say out loud that they're planning to vote yes.
Cornyn's position, when asked directly how he'd vote, was essentially: I don't have to decide right now, so I won't. 'The hearing is not even halfway done,' he said. That is not the kind of enthusiasm you want to see from a member of your own party during your confirmation hearing for one of the most powerful law enforcement jobs on the planet.
Tillis is in a similar spot. He declined to say whether he'd support Blanche at all. He did note that when asked if he'd work on legislation to permanently kill the anti-weaponization fund, Blanche said yes. Tillis seemed to treat that as a promising sign. The bar is on the floor.
The $1.8 Billion Slush Fund Nobody Can Kill
Both Cornyn and Tillis are hung up on the same thing: a $1.8 billion fund created out of Trump's personal IRS settlement, designed to compensate people who claimed they were victims of government 'weaponization.' Fox News has been reporting on Republican frustration with this fund for weeks, and the fury has not cooled.
Blanche, under questioning, acknowledged the fund was still 'enforceable' but said it was 'not moving forward.' That answer landed with all the reassurance of a doctor saying your test results are 'interesting.' It is technically a statement. It is not a promise. Cornyn in particular has taken serious issue with the settlement itself, the fund it spawned, and the fact that nobody seems able to definitively pronounce it dead.
Tillis put it as plainly as a senator ever does: does anyone really believe Blanche would say he'd support legislation ending the fund without the president's blessing? That's actually a fair point. If Trump wanted the fund gone, it would be gone. It isn't gone. So what exactly is Blanche promising here?
The Moment He Called Trump His Friend
Look, confirmation hearings are grueling. Hours of questions from senators who already know how they're voting. You can forgive a slip of the tongue. But when Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked Blanche point blank if he considered himself the president's friend, and Blanche said yes before catching himself, that is the kind of clip that follows a nominee around forever.
'I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the deputy attorney general,' Blanche corrected himself. The slip matters because the entire critique of his nomination is that he was Trump's personal defense lawyer who now wants to run the Justice Department, an institution that is supposed to be independent of presidential whim. Cornyn's read on the moment was diplomatic: 'I think he's trying to walk a very difficult line.' That's a polite way of saying the guy visibly cannot separate himself from his former client.
Democrats Are Not Impressed, to Put It Mildly
Senate Democrats on the committee are not conflicted. They are simply opposed. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking Democrat on the panel, did not come to play nice. 'Anyone who can represent a known pathological liar like Donald Trump can have no integrity,' Durbin said during the hearing. He added that Blanche 'should never, never, never be attorney general.' Three nevers. The man has a flair for emphasis.
Even the closest thing to a compliment Blanche received from Democrats came wrapped in a critique. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware acknowledged that Blanche was qualified as a former prosecutor, then immediately followed that with a condemnation of his willingness to 'support the weaponization of the department' and carry out what Coons called a 'retribution agenda.' So: competent, just wrong for the job. That's the best the Democrats offered.
The Epstein files came up as well. Durbin pushed hard on how the DOJ has handled millions of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and whether Blanche would actually meet with Epstein survivors. Blanche's answers apparently did not satisfy Durbin. Shocking development.
What Happens Next
Day two of the hearing is now underway, and Blanche is heading back for more. The questions about DOJ independence from the White House, the Epstein files, and the ever-present anti-weaponization fund are not going away. And until Cornyn and Tillis get something that looks more like a guarantee than a suggestion, this confirmation is genuinely in jeopardy.
The timeline matters. Trump needs a confirmed Attorney General running the Justice Department with full authority, not an acting one working under the cloud of an incomplete confirmation process. Every day this drags out is a day the DOJ's leadership hangs in uncertainty. That might actually be fine with some people in this administration, but it is not exactly a sign of a well-run government.
The Dingo Take
Here is what we should all sit with for a moment. The man who spent years as Donald Trump's personal criminal defense attorney, who was in the room for some of the most legally consequential moments of Trump's post-presidency, is now trying to convince the United States Senate that he can run the Department of Justice as an independent institution. And the two Republicans most skeptical of him aren't skeptical because of the personal-lawyer problem. They're skeptical because of a billion-dollar slush fund that technically still exists. The priorities here are something.
If Blanche gets confirmed, and he probably will because Republicans almost always fall into line eventually, the country will have an Attorney General whose most recent professional experience was keeping his current boss out of prison. The DOJ's 'independence from the White House' will be, in the most generous reading possible, theoretical. In the least generous reading, which is also the most accurate one, it will be a punchline.
Cornyn called it 'trying to walk a very difficult line.' That's one way to put it. Another way is that the line between 'personal defense lawyer for the president' and 'nation's top law enforcement officer' is not a line you walk. It's a line you either respect or you don't. Based on everything that happened in that hearing room, we know which way this is headed.
