Sen. Bill Cassidy delivered the decisive vote to confirm Todd Blanche as the nation's 88th attorney general, a narrow victory that came only after Blanche agreed to kill a controversial $1.8 billion settlement fund.
Cassidy announced his support from the Senate floor on Friday, August 7, breaking days of suspense over whether the Louisiana Republican would back President Trump's pick to lead the Justice Department. His vote put Blanche at exactly 50, the bare minimum needed for confirmation with Sen. Mitch McConnell absent for health reasons and every Senate Democrat lined up against the nominee. Politico reported that Cassidy had spoken with Blanche multiple times since the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination on a party-line 12-10 vote earlier in the week.
Hours later, the Senate voted to confirm Blanche 50-49 in an overnight session, clearing the way for lawmakers to leave Washington for a five-week August recess. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted no, joining all Democrats in opposition. The Washington Examiner reported that the confirmation gave the Justice Department its first Senate-confirmed leader since April.
Blanche, who had been serving as acting attorney general after Trump fired predecessor Pam Bondi, now holds the job permanently. His path to confirmation exposed fault lines within the Republican conference, and forced the White House into a series of concessions that would have been unthinkable a year ago.
Cassidy did not pretend Blanche was a flawless nominee. He acknowledged from the floor that Blanche had shown "poor judgment" in his involvement with the $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund," a payout mechanism brokered as part of a settlement between Trump and the IRS. But Cassidy framed the choice in practical terms:
"The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche."
Cassidy also pushed back on the idea that his vote amounted to a rubber stamp for the president. He and Trump carry baggage, Cassidy voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and Trump endorsed Cassidy's Republican primary opponent this cycle, costing Cassidy his seat. The senator addressed that history directly, saying the two "have a history" but "that history does not matter one bit."
The broader dynamic within the GOP conference has been a recurring source of friction between Trump and Senate Republicans this year. The party's slim majority has given individual senators outsized leverage on nominations and legislation alike.
Cassidy told his colleagues he would take heat for the vote and did not flinch from it:
"I will be criticized for this vote. What's new? But the people of Louisiana can be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue and to make the right decision."
The confirmation fight centered on a single issue more than any other: the $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund. Blanche helped broker the fund as part of a settlement between Trump and the IRS, and critics, including members of his own party, saw it as a potential slush fund that blurred the line between the Justice Department's institutional role and Trump's personal legal interests. Blanche's prior work as Trump's personal attorney only deepened those concerns.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas cut a deal with Blanche earlier in August to rein in the settlement. Blanche agreed to put guardrails on the fund, and Newsmax reported that he was ultimately required to formally rescind the fund in writing before enough Republicans would support him. That concession won over Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both of whom are leaving the Senate and had little political incentive to fall in line.
Cornyn himself had lost his primary after Trump endorsed former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against him. Tillis announced his retirement last year after breaking with Trump over the GOP's "big, beautiful bill." Neither man owed the White House a favor, and both extracted a price for their votes.
Senate Republicans have shown a similar willingness to flex their independence on other nominations. The recent confirmation of Jay Clayton as intelligence chief passed on a wider margin but still required careful vote-counting by leadership.
Collins announced her opposition on Tuesday, and Murkowski followed on Friday morning, just hours before Cassidy went the other way. Murkowski had met privately with Blanche and Cassidy on Wednesday afternoon, and afterward she was spotted talking with Cornyn and members of GOP leadership. Whatever assurances Blanche offered were not enough. Murkowski's stated concerns centered on the potential conflict of interest posed by Blanche's dual role as Trump's former personal lawyer and the nation's chief law enforcement officer, as well as the administration's initial reluctance to abandon the payout fund.
With McConnell absent, Blanche could afford no more than two Republican defections. Collins and Murkowski used up the margin entirely, making Cassidy's vote the difference between confirmation and an embarrassing defeat for the White House.
Democrats, unified against Blanche, cast the fight in stark terms. Sen. Dick Durbin argued that the country needed an attorney general "above reproach" and "clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government." The New York Post reported that Democratic opposition focused on Blanche's handling of Epstein-related documents, the IRS settlement, and broader allegations of a politicized Justice Department.
Even Sen. John Fetterman, who has crossed party lines on other Trump nominees, refused to support Blanche, a sign that Democrats saw the attorney general pick as a bright line.
The president made clear he would not accept a loss. Last week, Trump fumed over the possibility that Senate Republicans could reject Blanche and threatened to revive the Anti-Weaponization Fund and renominate Blanche in January if the Senate blocked him. That threat carried weight: it told wavering Republicans that killing the nomination would not kill the fund, it would only delay a Senate-confirmed attorney general.
White House allies worked alongside Blanche to lobby holdouts throughout the week. The effort paid off, though it required the kind of retail dealmaking, private meetings, written commitments, phone calls, that this Senate has demanded on nomination after nomination.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley framed the stakes bluntly: "A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote for the safety of the American people." The committee's 12-10 vote to advance Blanche came only after he rescinded the order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund, according to Breitbart.
Cassidy himself warned that leaving the Justice Department without a confirmed leader carried real costs. He pointed to the progress the department has made on violent crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and fraud, and said that a prolonged leadership vacuum "does not serve the American people well."
Blanche responded to his confirmation with a brief statement: "I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation's 88th Attorney General." The Senate also passed a bipartisan government funding bill extending through December 11 by a 90-6 margin before lawmakers scattered for the recess.
With Democrats' path to Senate control narrowing, the confirmation underscores how much the current Republican majority can still deliver for the White House, even when it has to drag itself across the finish line one vote at a time.
Blanche now leads a Justice Department that spent months without a permanent boss. Whether the guardrails he promised will hold, or whether they were simply the price of admission, is a question only his conduct in office can answer. Washington has heard plenty of confirmation-hearing promises before. Taxpayers will be watching to see if this one sticks.