During a confirmation hearing in Washington on July 15, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spent about five hours fielding questions from U.S. senators in his bid to become the nation’s 88th attorney general.
Blanche, President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, said serving in the Department of Justice (DOJ) “was my American dream.”
“I’ve lived the American dream. I waited tables to get through college, moved to New York with my wife and two young kids, went to law school at night, read textbooks on the late train home while I worked days as a paralegal at the U.S. Attorney’s office,” Blanche said.
He then became a prosecutor and spent nine years prosecuting violent gangs and drug dealers.
Blanche rose through the ranks, but he “did not take that path for a title.”
“I took it to make a difference for American families and the towns they call home,” he said.
Blanche commended DOJ employees and said, “Leading them is the honor of my professional life.”
Here are five highlights from the hearing, which continues July 16 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Blanche and several committee members acknowledged the vacant chair that had been held by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who died on July 11.
Democrats Say Blanche Is Still ‘Trump’s Lawyer’
During his opening statement, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), alleged that Blanche has failed to detach himself enough from his former role as Trump’s personal lawyer.Blanche became deputy attorney general in March 2025. After Trump fired then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in April, Blanche became acting attorney general. Last month, Trump nominated him to step into the role permanently.
Durbin opined that Blanche has remained too closely wedded to the president.
“In less than 18 months at the Department of Justice, you have shown you’re still President Trump’s personal attorney,” Durbin said. “Your tenure can be summed up in the four words you said: ‘I love you, sir,’ to President Trump. This was your response when asked what you would say to him.
“This nation deserves an attorney general who loves the Constitution more than any single president—an attorney general focused on keeping America safe and combating corruption, not satisfying the president’s personal grievances.”
Blanche said in his opening statement that he remains focused on furthering justice and safety across the nation.
“When a family can send their kids to school, walk their neighborhood after dark, and build a life without fear, every promise of the American Dream is within reach,” Blanche said. “When they cannot, none of it is. That’s my job: Securing safety for every American. ...We are keeping America safe.”
When Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked Blanche about his relationship with the president, Blanche said he used to be Trump’s lawyer.
“So I met him as his criminal defense attorney. I’m not sure there’s very many people who have ever had a criminal defense attorney who calls that person their friend,” Blanche said.
Kennedy noted that presidents don’t appoint their enemies to serve as attorneys general but instead “appoint their qualified friends.”
Blanche said Trump does not consult with him about his every action and that the president has sometimes rejected his advice.
Later in the hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) accused Blanche of inappropriately shielding Trump in several matters, including disputes over records withheld and the president’s lawsuit alleging that the IRS leaked his tax records.
Blanche said he represented Trump in three criminal cases and had recused himself from any DOJ-related actions in those cases, all of which are inactive.
Republicans Note Less Crime, More Prosecutions
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, told Blanche: “You went through a rough Senate confirmation a little over a year ago.”“[Since then,] my Democratic colleagues have relentlessly attacked the department and your and President Trump’s leadership. They’ve called the department a ‘disgrace’ and suggested the agency is broken.”
Grassley said he wanted to “put aside partisan criticism for a moment and assess the evidence.”
He rattled off the DOJ’s track record since Trump took office as the 47th president in January 2025.
The nation has logged its lowest homicide rate since 1900. Federal authorities have made more than 6,300 fentanyl arrests and seized “more than 428 million fatal doses” of the drug, Grassley said.
“The FBI has arrested 2,900 child predators and human traffickers—a 70 percent increase from 2024—and located more than 6,940 child victims,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound like failure to me.
“The list goes on. This department is keeping Americans safe, and the numbers back that up.”
Grassley said he does not agree with how the DOJ or Blanche has handled every matter, but that, on balance, Blanche has done a great job.
He noted that organizations representing more than 600,000 law enforcement officers, 23 state attorneys general, and “scores of former Justice Department officials” support Blanche to become attorney general.
Epstein Files
Durbin, at the outset of the hearing, took issue with the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and the release of files related to the deceased sex offender.Although Bondi was head of the DOJ at the time of the release, Blanche took the lead on the initiative.
Durbin accused Blanche of being more concerned about protecting Trump’s reputation than about pursuing justice. He mentioned that the DOJ accidentally leaked the names of some victims that were intended to remain private.
“Meanwhile, the names of powerful Epstein allies remained protected, in clear violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” Durbin said.
Blanche countered that there was “nary a peep” about the Epstein case during the Biden administration. He also said the DOJ worked to quickly redact the names of victims when notified about the mistake.
Anti-Weaponization Fund
Multiple senators at the July 15 hearing said the DOJ’s decision to settle a Trump lawsuit against the IRS and establish a fund to pay alleged victims of government overreach showed Blanche’s priorities favored Trump.The $10 billion lawsuit stemmed from 2019, when an IRS employee leaked Trump’s tax returns. Earlier this year, the DOJ agreed to settle the suit, stating that the IRS would no longer pursue claims against Trump, members of his family, or his businesses over allegedly unpaid taxes.
The settlement also proposed the establishment of a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate alleged victims of government weaponization. Blanche told Congress in June that the plan had been abandoned after a federal judge blocked it.
The judge then ruled on July 13 that Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was an example of self-dealing that was filed for an “improper purpose.” The ruling voided the settlement.
Schiff said that despite any internal DOJ discussions about the settlement, the buck stopped with Blanche.
“Who rejected the 25 defenses the IRS had to this sham lawsuit?” Schiff asked Blanche. “You made the decision to not defend the IRS and the Justice Department.”
Schiff accused Blanche of having come to compromise his principles. Blanche said his principles have not changed since taking over the DOJ.
Mail-Order Abortion Pills
Grassley said the committee had received several inquiries about a Louisiana court case challenging the “relaxed” Food and Drug Administration regulation on mail-order abortion drugs.When he asked Blanche about the DOJ’s position in that case, the nominee responded, “President Trump is the most pro-life president in history, and the work that this department’s doing in that space is something that hasn’t been done for 10 years.”
That entails examining the safety of abortion pills.
However, Blanche said that “it would be wrong for me to talk about any litigation strategy beyond what’s in our briefs,” but the Trump DOJ is “not in any way defending” loosening abortion-pill restrictions, which happened during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) described cases in which men had forced pregnant women into taking abortion-inducing pills or even had covertly put them into the women’s drinks.
Then he asked Blanche whether he would consider using DOJ resources to begin a “Protecting Women and Children Initiative,” which would prosecute people for this type of crime and “work with states to go after these coerced abortions.”
Blanche replied: “I very much commit to looking at that. I share your concerns.
“A lot of that is not necessarily a federal crime, but the federal government can certainly help in that space.”
Those exchanges followed a July 14 letter that two Republican senators sent to Blanche.
In the letter, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) outlined their “growing concern that the Department of Justice has not acted to stop the abortion industry’s unlawful and unsafe mail-order abortion drug practice.”
They ended the letter with an urgent call to action.
“With every day that passes, more lives are at risk and are lost because of this harmful policy. DOJ can and must act. Acting Attorney General Blanche, we ask that you immediately direct DOJ to agree to a court-ordered consent decree, which will put an end to this egregious policy and protect life. There is no time to wait,” the letter reads.
