The confirmation of Todd Blanche as United States attorney general hit a significant obstacle on Wednesday after the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote that had been scheduled for Thursday, following the refusal of two key Republican senators to back his nomination without written guarantees from the Justice Department about a controversial settlement involving the Internal Revenue Service.
Blanche, a former personal criminal defence lawyer for Donald Trump who currently holds the attorney general role on an acting basis, requires the support of every Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance his nomination to a full Senate floor vote. Two Republicans — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have withheld that support, demanding written confirmation that the Justice Department has permanently abandoned a $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" established as part of a broader legal settlement. That fund, created to compensate people who claim they were wrongly targeted by the government, was announced by Blanche as scrapped in June amid bipartisan outrage, but the Justice Department has declined to formalise that decision in writing. Both Cornyn and Tillis lost their Republican primary re-election bids to Trump-endorsed challengers earlier this year, adding a sharp political dimension to their willingness to press the administration. "Maybe they think I'm just going to give up or go along, but they're mistaken," Cornyn told reporters.
The dispute centres on a settlement reached over Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS related to the unauthorised leak of his tax returns. Beyond the now-disputed fund, the agreement granted Trump, his family, and associated businesses blanket immunity from tax audits for filings made before the deal was reached. Cornyn has pushed to clarify that this immunity does not extend to future tax filings or to individuals who were not parties to the settlement. A federal judge overseeing the case issued a scathing ruling describing the lawsuit as brought with an "improper purpose" and expressing concern that Blanche had signed the settlement given his prior personal representation of Trump — a conflict of interest that Democrats have cited in opposing the nomination. The Justice Department is reported to have submitted a written proposal to Cornyn's office seeking to address his concerns, but negotiations remained unresolved by Wednesday evening.
Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, signalled a desire to keep negotiations alive, with a spokesperson stating that the postponement was intended to "set President Trump's nominees up for success in committee, not failure." Trump publicly downplayed the impasse, calling Blanche "outstanding" and suggesting Cornyn's resistance stemmed from the president's decision not to endorse him in the Texas primary. Democrats seized on the delay, with Representative Robert Garcia calling Blanche "too corrupt and untrustworthy" and accusing him of orchestrating what he described as a "billion-dollar slush fund." Senior Senate Democrat Dick Durbin has also urged the chamber to reject the nomination, citing concerns over Blanche's handling of files related to sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his role in moving Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison.
The standoff underscores the narrow margins that define Republican control of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the broader challenges facing the Trump administration in consolidating its cabinet appointments. With the Justice Department resisting formal written commitments and senators insisting they are non-negotiable, no new date for the confirmation vote has been announced.