Blanche to face questions about his independence at attorney general confirmation hearing
WASHINGTON— Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche, President Trump’s pick for attorney general, will be a referendum on much more than his individual merits.
Acting attorney general Blanche served as Trump’s defense attorney before taking office and was closely connected to many of the most important and controversial issues that marked the first two years of Trump’s second term.
Blanche will appear on stage before Senate Judiciary CommitteeHe will decide whether to confirm his nomination and send it to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. committee hearing will continue Thursday.
“I would expect committee Democrats to use Mr. Blanche’s hearing as an opportunity to police the Justice Department,” said Phil Brest, president of the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal nonprofit and a former top Democratic member of the committee. “This is a test of the Senate’s willingness to investigate the department’s operations and, in effect, serve as a check on the department and the administration more broadly.”
Democrats on the committee are expected to push Blanche on a range of issues, including the $1.8 billion “gun fund” that critics have derided as a slush fund for the president’s allies, the Justice Department’s release of the so-called Epstein files and the department’s launch of investigations into some of Trump’s enemies, particularly former FBI Director James Comey.
Sen., the committee’s top Democrat. “While Blanche used the Justice Department as a shield for the president and his cronies, she also used our top law enforcement agencies as a sword against Trump’s political rivals,” said Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). last month. “The DOJ’s independence has been destroyed under Blanche’s authority.”
Blanche was confirmed by the Senate as deputy attorney general in March 2025 and was elevated to her current post after Solicitor General. General Pam Bondi was dismissed in April.
More critical to the success of Blanche’s candidacy will be whether she can win the support of two lame Republican senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who expressed some reservations about Blanche soon after her candidacy was announced.
While Cornyn expressed concerns about Blanche’s independence from Trump, Tillis said Blanche’s handling of the protesters who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, will be critical in his evaluation.
Some of the protesters on Jan. 6 were expected to be beneficiaries of a $1.8 billion fund announced as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed by Trump, his sons and businesses against the IRS.
Federal judge makes harsh decision this week wrote that there was a lawsuit This was inappropriate and recommended sanctions against two Justice Department lawyers who worked on the case, though not Blanche herself.
Cornyn he told Semafor on Tuesday He said the decision raised a number of issues, including “the potentially collusive nature of the case.”
He had previously said he would postpone a decision on whether to approve Blanche until after the hearing.
Meanwhile, Tillis he told CNN’s Manu Raju Open Tuesday He said gun funding would have to be completely off the table for Blanche to support his candidacy.
Trump touted Blanche’s record ahead of the hearing.
“Todd Blanche is doing a PHENOMENAL job as Deputy Attorney General of the United States,” the President said. Wrote at Truth Social. “He is a great lawyer, always very fair, and every Republican Senator should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blanche ASAP!”
The death of Senator Lindsey Graham means Republicans now have just a one-seat majority, but Graham could be replaced on the committee before a vote on whether to advance his nomination to the Senate, which is likely to come two weeks after the hearing.
Blanche, 51, spent 12 years with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, working mostly on drug and violent crime cases, rising to the level of co-chief of the district’s White Plains division.
He left the office to go into private practice in 2014 and joined leading law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft as a partner in 2017. He left the company in 2023 and subsequently went independent. other partners expressed concerns When he got Trump as a client.
Blanche continued to represent Trump in a variety of criminal matters, including the New York lawsuit over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and lawsuits filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith over Trump’s alleged attempts to obstruct the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election and his alleged withholding of classified documents.
He listed all three among the top 10 cases of his career. the questionnaire he filled out before the hearing, Along with his work at the Justice Department on a case challenging the construction of a new White House ballroom.
A group of more than 1,200 former Justice Department lawyers wrote a letter opposing Blanche’s nomination, arguing that her leadership had led to mass departures of career staff. This “means much of the department’s vital work goes undone or goes undone, leaves communities less safe, less protects the rights of Americans, and leaves our national security more vulnerable,” the lawyers wrote.
Former Justice Department pardon attorney Liz Oyer is scheduled to testify as a witness on behalf of Democrats on Thursday. He said actor Mel Gibson was fired for refusing to recommend the restoration of gun rights.
Joining Oyer on Thursday will be Dani Bensky, one of the many victims of deceased sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein, who criticized Blanche’s handling of the release of the so-called Epstein files (millions of pages of records detailing the Justice Department’s investigations into Epstein’s crimes).
Multiple victims said their names and other sensitive information were not properly redacted in the files and criticized Blanche and the department for failing to investigate potential accomplices of Epstein.
Blanche was also criticized by survivors of Epstein’s abuse for her July 2025 interview with Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in facilitating and participating in Epstein’s abuse.
Days after their meeting, Maxwell was transferred from her prison in Florida to a minimum security prison in Texas.
