A day before a key Senate committee was set to vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, a Republican senator on July 29 said he was withholding his support.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) canceled a meeting with Blanche scheduled for Wednesday and told reporters that he was “not prepared” to vote for Blanche.
Without support from all Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Cornyn, Blanche’s nomination would be poised to fail.
The committee is scheduled to vote on July 30 to send Blanche’s nomination to the full Senate. Without Cornyn’s support, the committee might postpone the vote; as of Wednesday evening, the status of that vote was unclear.
Cornyn’s opposition to Blanche, who has been acting attorney general since Trump fired Pam Bondi in April, stems from his demand for Blanche’s Justice Department to respond in writing to his concerns over settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS for leaking his tax returns.
The Texas senator opposed Trump’s plan to use the $1.8-billion settlement to compensate alleged victims of politically motivated prosecutions. He also disliked a provision shielding Trump and his relatives from tax audits and insisted that provision be changed.
Blanche had repeatedly promised that the compensation fund idea is dead, and he also stated the deal protected the president and his family only from existing IRS actions, not future ones.
Cornyn, however, said the Justice Department had failed to satisfy his concerns.
He disputed reports that he had agreed to support Blanche.
“Fake news alert: there is no ‘deal’ on Blanche nom. They know what they have to do,” Cornyn wrote in a July 28 X post, referring to the Justice Department.
On July 16, after a two-day confirmation hearing for Blanche had concluded, Cornyn stated he had a “positive interview” with Blanche.
“He committed to further briefing on the tax audit issue involving President Trump and his family,” Cornyn wrote on X at the time. “I will not make a decision on confirmation until after that briefing and completion of his hearing before the committee.”
Meanwhile, a second Republican swing vote remains uncertain.
Later on July 16, Tillis said Blanche had complied with that request, but the senator’s stance on Blanche was undisclosed as of early Wednesday evening.
Both Cornyn and Tillis are in their final months as senators; their terms expire in January.
Blanche needs all 11 Republicans on the committee to vote for him, except in the unlikely event that one of the group’s 10 Democrats would break rank and support the Republican nominee.
If the committee votes in favor of Blanche, he would also need near-unanimous support of the 53 Republican senators. To become the 88th attorney general, Blanche would need 51 votes, or 50 votes plus a tie-breaking vote by Vice President JD Vance.
