Todd Blanche confirmed as attorney general by a single vote

Todd Blanche is officially the new United States attorney general. Donald Trump's former lawyer was confirmed by the Senate by a single vote, on the last working day before Capitol Hill closed for August. Confirmation came after a long standoff among Republican senators.

Two of the party's senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voted with the Democrats against Pam Bondi's former deputy. The decisive vote was cast by Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana senator who attacked the president harshly for years and who in 2021 voted in favour of impeachment. «This is not a referendum on Trump», he said in announcing his intention. «I have history with Trump, but that history counts for absolutely nothing.» Cassidy, a doctor who chairs the health committee, was already at the centre of controversy last year for backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to lead the Department of Health.

Blanche had been running the department on an interim basis since April, after Bondi was dismissed. Doubts about his appointment centred on two files: the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein records and the creation of a 1.8 billion dollar fund to compensate the president's allies for what is described as the previous administration's abuse of justice. Opponents argued the money could have been used to help those convicted over the 6 January 2021 assault on the Capitol.

A pledge without guarantees

Under party pressure, Blanche committed to dropping the plan. It is unclear whether that commitment is legally binding, or whether the president might later persuade his attorney general to revive a similar initiative. That is the doubt Murkowski set out on the floor.

«I am fully aware that the department's discretionary fund, which amounts to nearly 2 billion dollars and would probably have rewarded the 6 January protesters, has been shelved only because this nomination is pending and the Senate has negotiating power», the Alaska senator said. «Once the vote has taken place, all of that ends and there is no predicting what the future holds.» She also based her no on a lack of confidence in Blanche's ability to restrain the administration's worst impulses and on the risk of politicising the department.

Collins objected to the new attorney general's role in settling the ten billion dollar dispute between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service. Both senators, who support abortion rights, also recalled that Blanche promised pro-life groups a hard line in enforcing the Supreme Court ruling that abolished that right nationwide.

After the vote the attorney general said he was «deeply honoured by the trust President Trump has placed in him». Since taking over on an interim basis he has defended the president's right to intervene in criminal investigations and the pardons granted to those responsible for the assault on Congress. He has also given new impetus to investigations targeting the president's opponents, among them former FBI director James B. Comey, former CIA director John Brennan and Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who testified against him before Congress.