The US Senate voted to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general on August 8, 2026, capping a nomination battle that exposed deep fractures within the Republican caucus over the Justice Department's conduct under his leadership. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana cast the deciding vote, allowing the nomination to advance on a margin so narrow that a single defection would have blocked it. Every Democratic senator voted no.

The confirmation follows a nomination process that nearly collapsed over a Justice Department deal creating a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" and granting the president, his sons, and his business tax immunity. The deal drew sharp pushback from Republican senators whose votes Blanche needed. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska announced on X that she would vote against the nomination, characterizing the nearly $2 billion allocation as a "slush fund" that she said was "only off the table because the nomination was pending." Susan Collins of Maine joined Murkowski in opposing Blanche, leaving Republican leadership scrambling to hold the remaining votes.

John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina pressed Blanche to put in writing that the anti-weaponization fund was not moving forward and to clarify the scope of the IRS deal, according to The Guardian. Reuters had reported on August 3 that Blanche rescinded the anti-weaponization fund, a move that secured Cornyn and Tillis's support and allowed the nomination to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee. But that committee-level victory was thrown into doubt when Murkowski announced her opposition, Reuters reported on August 5, narrowing Blanche's path to confirmation.

Cassidy, the pivotal vote, framed his decision as a choice between two imperfect outcomes. He said his decision was between Blanche and another acting attorney general who might not run the department effectively under President Trump. In other words, Cassidy voted yes not as an endorsement but as a calculated judgment that the alternative was worse.

The controversies surrounding Blanche's nomination extended well beyond the anti-weaponization fund. During his tenure as deputy attorney general and then acting attorney general, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey twice, New York attorney general Letitia James, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The department also attempted to bring criminal charges against Democratic senators Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona. Those actions drew accusations that the department was being weaponized against the president's political opponents, a charge that sat awkwardly alongside the existence of an "anti-weaponization fund" ostensibly designed to prevent exactly such misuse.

Blanche also faced scrutiny over the Justice Department's handling of Jeffrey Epstein-related files. A rollout of documents left victims' names unredacted, drawing sharp criticism. Blanche initially refused to personally meet with Epstein victims during his confirmation hearing before later reversing course and agreeing to do so.

Blanche's personal trajectory made the nomination politically charged from the start. He left a lucrative partnership at a major law firm in 2023 to represent Donald Trump in criminal proceedings, a decision that positioned him at the center of Trump's legal defense and ultimately on a path to running the very department that had prosecuted his client. The Senate confirmed him as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025, by Roll Call Vote 105 in the 119th Congress, after a cloture vote on Executive Calendar #27.

The broader context here is one of institutional strain. The Justice Department under Blanche's leadership has pursued an aggressive set of investigations targeting figures central to previous legal actions against the president. The attempt to charge sitting Democratic senators with crimes, the dual indictments of a former FBI director, and the prosecution of a state attorney general who brought civil cases against Trump's business all raise questions about the normative boundaries between the Justice Department's investigative independence and presidential direction. These are not novel questions in the American system, but the tempo and targeting pattern under Blanche has intensified them.

For Senate Republicans, the confirmation vote became a test of how much leverage individual senators could extract. Cornyn and Tillis secured written commitments. Murkowski and Collins concluded the commitments were insufficient. Cassidy calculated that a flawed confirmed attorney general was preferable to an unconfirmed acting one operating without the accountability of Senate oversight. Every Democrat concluded none of that was acceptable, and voted as a bloc against a nominee whose department had sought to criminally charge two of their colleagues.

Blanche now assumes the attorney general role with a narrow Senate majority, a caucus that extracted concessions under threat of defection, and an institutional credibility deficit stemming from the Epstein file rollout and the since-rescinded anti-weaponization fund. His department's ongoing prosecutions of Comey, Letitia James, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the attempted cases against Slotkin and Kelly will define his tenure as much as any policy agenda. Whether those cases proceed, stall, or expand is the question that Democratic senators and the two Republican defectors will be watching most closely.