Sen. Tillis’ Vote Is Key in Blanche’s Bid To Stay Atop the DOJ

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is staring down a thorny path to stay atop the Justice Department as he faces a perilous task of trying to convince Sen. Thom Tillis and other key Judiciary Committee members to back his nomination for the full-time post.

Blanche won the blessing of President Donald Trump, who said Wednesday he was officially nominating Blanche for the post after a two-month trial run overseeing the Department of Justice, having taken on the acting role when Pam Bondi was ousted in April.

Trump’s support, however, is only part of the battle; Blanche now has to win confirmation from the Senate. Tillis (R-North Carolina), who is not seeking reelection and has broken with the president at times, will serve as the make-or-break vote on advancing Blanche’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee.

“Whether there are the votes to move him through the committee, I don’t know the answer to that,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), a member of the panel, which is split 12-10 between the two parties.

“That’s essentially a one-vote committee,” he said. A deadlock vote would kill the nomination.

Throughout Blanche’s two-month stint atop the Justice Department, he has become a favorite of many Senate Republicans who are comfortable with him leading the department, either as a Senate-confirmed member of the Cabinet or in his current acting capacity.

Trump has seemed pleased so far with Blanche’s tenure, especially with the Justice Department securing indictments against some of the president’s top adversaries. Topping that list was an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram photo that prosecutors argue was threatening to the president.

But Blanche could face a challenge in winning over Tillis, who has increasingly become a thorn in the side of the administration since he decided last summer not to seek another term.

Tillis has laid down the marker over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“The key for Todd, or anybody going through Judiciary Committee, is being pretty tight on Jan. 6. They better not have said for one minute that the people that beat up police officers … were righteous people,” Tillis said Thursday. “You come even close to saying that, you don’t have a [chance] of getting my vote in Judiciary.”

Whether that creates problems for Blanche remains to be seen.

The acting attorney general touted Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters and boasted that the Justice Department had “cleaned house” by ousting about 200 employees who were involved in Jan. 6 prosecutions. Tillis had previously declined to support Ed Martin’s nomination to become U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia over his past Jan. 6 comments.

Tillis has been complimentary of Blanche on other fronts, though, especially for the acting attorney general’s work in helping unwind the investigation into former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the Fed’s renovations. That prompted Tillis to lift his hold and eventually support Kevin Warsh to replace Powell.

Blanche’s rough road extends beyond Tillis, as two other Judiciary Republicans — Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and John Kennedy of Louisiana — indicated Thursday that they are undecided on his nomination.

Cornyn is an especially key member given his free-agent status, having lost his primary after Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

“I’m not prepared to say one way or another,” Cornyn told reporters. “I think [his chances depend] on his answers to questions that I intend to ask him at the Judiciary Committee.”

He added that Blanche’s role as Trump’s former personal attorney could also prove problematic for him.

“The hard part about being attorney general is you wear two hats. You’re a member of the president’s Cabinet, subject to his continued approval, but you’re also the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” Cornyn said. “I want to make sure he understands that, because the attorney general is not the president’s private lawyer.”

“By its nature, it’s a really hard job to do, but I want to make sure he understands the difference and is committed to making sure that the law is enforced,” Cornyn added.

Another key question is whether the committee will even take up his nomination.

Republican members are well aware that Blanche, who was already confirmed by the Senate for his post as deputy under Bondi, could stay as acting attorney general for 400 days under theJulie Su precedent created during the Biden administration.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated that he expects Blanche’s nomination to move ahead, but said the prospects remain in question.

“Hard to say,” Thune told reporters Thursday. “This is an environment where nothing is a safe or true bet.”

Most recently, Blanche has had an up-and-down stretch with Senate Republicans after he attempted to assuage their concerns about the president’s “anti-weaponization” fund to steer taxpayer money to people who argue they were unfairly targeted by the government. His initial attempts did not quell the uproar, leading Blanche to tell lawmakers under oath this week that the fund is dead.

Tillis and a group of lawmakers were seeking a legislative guarantee that the fund was killed before they would pass a funding bill for immigration enforcement.

The retiring senator argued that it was both a political imperative for Republicans and good for Blanche’s confirmation hopes.

“I actually believe that getting this issue off the table improves Todd’s chances of getting through Judiciary and getting through the floor,” Tillis said. “If this is still out there, can you imagine what the Democrats are going to do [to] that man during a confirmation hearing? And can you imagine how that could potentially influence a couple of our members?”

“We take this off the table, Todd’s chances of becoming confirmed as the AG go up, I believe, immeasurably,” Tillis said.