(CNN) — More than three years ago, President Donald Trump turned to New York defense attorney Todd Blanche to step into a legal firestorm that threatened multiple criminal convictions and could cost Trump’s business hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now, Blanche is slated to formally undertake the permanent role as the face of the president’s campaign of retribution against those who he believes tried to improperly target him for nearly a decade.
His confirmation as the attorney general by the Senate isn’t assured. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death left the Judiciary Committee Republicans with just one vote to lose, a razor thin margin of error that has given the few Republicans with hesitations an ability to negotiate with the department on matters most important to them.
Blanche has been prepping for Wednesday’s high-stakes Judiciary Committee hearing for more than a week, betting on his track record of cracking down on gang activity, fraud and drug trafficking, as well as enforcing the administration’s hardline immigration approach as the ticket through the confirmation process, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
He has participated in at least one practice run of the hearing, one of the sources said, and has also focused on ways to fight back against allegations that he is operating based solely on the whims of the president and not in the interest of the United States, a separate source said.
That criticism is not confined to Democrats. Some conservatives say they’re still deciding whether to back Blanche after he signed a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, an effort critics warned would bankroll allies of the president, including some who stormed the Capitol.
Blanche later walked away from the plan, telling lawmakers last month that “we are not moving forward with the fund, period.” Administration sources told CNN that they believe his statement put that issue to rest.
A federal judge in Florida on Monday castigated the initial lawsuit that led to the fund and a tax audit immunity provision for Trump and his family as an effort to “manipulate the judicial process.”
The acting attorney general has also drawn fire for a string of contentious moves since his predecessor, Pam Bondi, was fired in April, including indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and the Southern Poverty Law Center; rollbacks of gun control measures; and waves of subpoenas issued to journalists seeking the identities of sources.
He took over the fallout of the Epstein files, which has dogged the president since Bondi promised and then failed to deliver on major new evidence about the convicted sex offender’s crimes. A group of Epstein survivors have come out against Blanche’s nomination, citing his role in efforts to contain the political fallout. And Blanche last year met with Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Inside the White House, officials have been optimistic about Blanche’s chances and have cited those same controversial actions as reasons for his confirmation, a senior administration official told CNN. Trump himself has been pleased with Blanche’s performance, telling reporters this spring that “Todd Blanche has really been doing a great job.”
“Todd learned from Pam’s mistakes,” a senior administration official told CNN days before Blanche was officially tapped to be attorney general. “And there’s more to come. A lot more to come.”
Effort to win over skeptical Republicans
With Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee unlikely to vote for him, a single Republican no-vote in the panel could damage Blanche’s nomination.
Concerns over his chances in the Senate peaked in late May, when a disastrous closed-door meeting on the anti-weaponization fund with Senate Republicans ended with multiple lawmakers publicly lambasting the acting attorney general. Blanche announced the administration was abandoning the fund two weeks later.
Blanche’s team also developed a focused effort over the past several weeks to shore up support from Republicans. Much of that reassurance was delivered during his private meetings on Capitol Hill, where Blanche had the ability to attempt to personally assure lawmakers that he had abandoned the fund and their concerns of politicization were unfounded.
Chief among those detractors is Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who said he had reservations on Blanche’s confirmation because he has shown no signs of backing away from a provision related to the fund that limits tax investigations into Trump and his family. Cornyn later said he had a “positive” meeting with Blanche, who promised him “further briefing on the tax audit issue.”
On Monday, however, Cornyn told reporters that the fund remained a “big concern” and that he would not commit to voting for Blanche until after the hearing.
Another of the GOP committee members, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, similarly raised concerns over who could benefit from the now-defunct fund, claiming that he would not vote for Blanche if he equivocated on condemning the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. After meeting with Blanche, Tillis said he had a “positive predisposition” towards the nominee.
Blanche has also faced general criticism about his personal relationship with Trump.
Tillis, who is retiring at the end of his term next year, said in an interview with CNN that he would oppose Blanche’s nomination if there was “even a whiff of a lack of independence” from the White House.
Democratic lawmakers are likely to seize on these concerns and hammer Blanche on his oversight of the fund, particularly over his refusal to say it is no longer being pursued in writing. They are also likely to push Blanche on his continued handling of the Epstein matter, another bipartisan flashpoint.
“Throughout his tenure at the Justice Department, Mr. Blanche has used the Department as a shield to protect the President and his MAGA allies and as a sword to attack his political opponents,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
Durbin said in a Monday post on social media that the Democratic witnesses in opposition to Blanche’s nomination would include Liz Oyer, a former US pardon lawyer who was fired by Blanche, and Dani Bensky, an Epstein survivor.
Ahead of the hearing, some Epstein survivors also appeared separately in a video urging lawmakers to reject Blanche’s nomination, criticizing the Justice Department for failing to redact victims’ information as part of the files. Blanche previously acknowledged that “mistakes were made” but argued that DOJ has moved expeditiously to correct any information unintentionally released.
If he succeeds in the committee, Blanche will have an equally thin margin in a full senate vote. Several additional Republican have scrutinized Blanche’s leadership, including Sen. Josh Hawley over the department’s failure to limit access to abortion pills by mail, as well as Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has challenged Blanche over the handling of the Epstein files.
Blanche can only lose four Republicans – three if Sen. Mitch McConnell is still absent and therefore can’t attend the vote.
But Trump’s agenda – and Blanche’s position – won’t necessarily falter even if his confirmation fails, as federal law says that the deputy attorney general can still lead the department while the top spot remains vacant.
And Blanche has promised fealty to the president regardless of his position: “If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say: ‘Thank you very much, I love you, sir,’” Blanche said in his first days as acting attorney general.
DOJ facing wrath of judges
While Blanche sits before the committee, his department continues to push forward on major legal fights across the country – and to face the wrath of several federal judges.
Several journalists from the New York Times are being forced to testify to a grand jury in New York over non-descript allegations of lawbreaking after the paper reported on security concerns involving Trump’s new Qatari-donated plane being used as Air Force One.
Those subpoenas, which are the second round sent to reporters who cover national security issues, are part of an escalation by the administration against independent news outlets. A spokesperson for the department has told CNN that the reporters themselves are not the target of criminal investigations.
Even so, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Monday that both the Defense and Justice Departments had established a joint taskforce to “identify and prosecute leakers.” Details on that task force, including its members and its purview, have not been clarified.
In Florida, prosecutors are still running a wide-ranging probe into former law enforcement and intelligence officials who scrutinized Trump during his 2016 campaign and first presidential term. Career DOJ officials have repeatedly told department leaders they don’t yet have a path to bring criminal charges in the investigation.
The department has also taken public actions to boost Trump’s false election-rigging claims. Blanche’s deputies at the department have attempted to subpoena information about 2020 election workers in Atlanta (though it was blocked in court last week) and to threaten criminal prosecution of election officials if they don’t do enough to keep non-citizens off the voter rolls.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed, Holmes Lybrand and Alison Main contributed to this report.
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