Washington: Senate Confirms Todd Blanche as Attorney General

The US Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general in a vote that wrapped up after 4 a.m. on Saturday, August 8, 2026, by a margin of 50 to 49. For Belgrade this is not a distant story from American domestic politics: the US Department of Justice is the body that prosecutes violations of the American sanctions regime and handles requests for international legal assistance and extradition, and as of Saturday it is led by a man who, until recently, was Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyer.

Blanche is the 88th attorney general of the United States, and only the second person confirmed to the post since Trump returned to the White House. He had already been running the department as acting attorney general since April 2026, when the president removed Pam Bondi. The confirmation now gives him a full mandate and strips the provisional status from every decision he makes.

The vote dragged from a late night session into the early morning hours, ahead of the Senate’s planned recess. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against him, joined by every Democrat. Republican Mitch McConnell did not vote. The arithmetic left no room to spare: with one seat absent and two defections from his own party, a single additional Republican no vote would have sunk the nomination.

Why was Cassidy’s vote decisive?

The outcome was settled on Friday morning by Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana who had been undecided until then. Addressing the Senate, he laid out the choice as he saw it:

Blanche is not perfect, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. The choice is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who might not run the department effectively under President Trump, and who really might not be as good as Mr. Blanche.

Cassidy also tried to separate his vote from any broader judgment of the administration.

This is not a referendum on President Trump. This is a decision about Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances,

said the senator, who this year lost his party primary to a challenger backed by Trump. His argument was also that Blanche’s experience as the defense lawyer who represented Trump in court makes him more credible when he eventually has to tell the president where the legal line sits.

The $1.8 billion fund

The real obstacle was not Blanche’s biography but money. Under his leadership, the department announced a settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the tax authority, which included the Anti-Weaponization Fund, a 1.8 billion dollar fund to compensate people who believe the criminal justice system wronged them, including participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The same arrangement also called for shielding the president and his family from tax audits.

Under pressure from Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Blanche promised in writing that the fund would be scrapped and that part of the tax audit settlement would be narrowed. Only after that did the Senate Judiciary Committee send the nomination to the floor.

That was not enough for Collins. She announced she would vote against him, citing the tax authority settlement and Blanche’s opposition to restricting the mailing of abortion pills. Murkowski said on Friday morning that the country needs an attorney general “who will stop the worst impulses of this administration.”

The Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, called the confirmation a serious mistake and urged colleagues not to end up on the wrong side of history.

If there has ever been a moment in history when we needed an attorney general beyond reproach, clearly committed to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government, it is right now.

The committee chairman, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, answered with a brief statement of support before the vote: “Mr. Blanche is the right choice.”

What Blanche brings to the department

Blanche began his career as a federal prosecutor in New York and became known as the lead lawyer on Trump’s defense team, including in the New York hush money trial and in two federal cases brought during the Biden administration. He describes that experience as an inside look at what he calls the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

He joined the department last year as deputy attorney general under Bondi, responsible for day to day operations and for the public face of the most sensitive cases, including the release of millions of investigative documents on Jeffrey Epstein. As acting attorney general, he accelerated investigations into Trump’s opponents. Shortly after taking over the top job, the department indicted former FBI director James Comey over a photo of seashells arranged to spell “86 47,” which prosecutors interpret as a threat against the president. Comey’s lawyers are seeking to have the case dismissed and accuse the department of misleading judges and withholding key facts.

Blanche also appointed Joseph diGenova, a prosecutor from the Reagan era, to lead a Florida based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials worked against Trump over the past decade. No indictment has been filed from that investigation.

The comparison with his predecessor is what carries the most weight in Washington. Bondi was removed after resistance from judges, juries and her own staff as prosecutors tried to prove a crime against one Trump opponent after another. Under Bondi and then Blanche, the department has lost several thousand employees to firings, resignations and voluntary departures. After the vote, Blanche wrote online that he was “deeply honored by the trust President Trump has placed in him” and thanked the senators who stayed up late.

The open question carries a date nobody yet knows. Trump has not signed off on the change to the tax audit settlement, so the Republican senators who killed the fund have no guarantee it will not come back. Blanche’s written promise binds the department, not the president.