You know how your parents, trying to defend what seemed at the time an unreasonable curfew, used to say nothing good happens after midnight? Turns out that’s also true of the United States Senate. At approximately 4:17 am Saturday morning, the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States by a vote of 50-49, elevating Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney to lead the Department of Justice. Cool cool cool.
The final vote breakdown: every Democrat voted no, joined by Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Both get to point to their no votes as evidence of their moderate independence — Collins heading into a competitive Maine re-election, Murkowski perpetually performing the same “I have concerns” routine she’s been running since the Kavanaugh hearings — secure in the knowledge that their votes didn’t actually matter, Blanche got confirmed anyway, and Trump has no grounds to be furious with them. It’s the perfect Republican moderate maneuver: principled enough to generate a headline, consequence-free enough to avoid a Truth Social post. The 50th vote, the one that actually mattered, was Bill Cassidy.
Cassidy’s vote that put Blanche over the top showed he learned absolutely nothing from watching RFK Jr. break every promise he made to secure his confirmation and decided to try again with Blanche. “Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this,” Cassidy said in his floor speech. “But 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.”
That is, as Bill Barr would recognize, the hostage negotiation argument, and it worked.
So, yeah. The man who spent two months auditioning for this job by declaring it the president’s “right and duty” to direct criminal investigations of his enemies, who introduced himself as Trump’s lawyer at his own confirmation hearing, who called two senators liars in his written responses, who won’t commit to keeping the slush fund dead in any legally binding way, and whose former SDNY colleagues wouldn’t vouch for him the second time around is now the permanent Attorney General of the United States.
As for the slush fund that played such a pivotal role in the process, even as the confirmation vote was pending this week, Trump told reporters the fund would have been “very fair” and could have given “some solace” to January 6 supporters who were prosecuted. “I view that fund as a positive, and a lot of Republicans do too,” the president said. Recall Blanche had to be forced to rescinded in writing the slush fund to get Cornyn and Tillis on board and even Cassidy admitted the fuds troubled him. But it’s still a positive in Trump’s eyes, and we have an Attorney General who hasn’t shown much willingness or ability to stand up to Trump.
Earlier: Todd Blanche Threading The Narrowest Of Needles For Confirmation
The Trump Slush Fund Is Dead. Long Live The Trump Slush Fund.
Todd Blanche Loses Susan Collins’s Vote. Blame His Secret Promises To Anti-Abortion Groups.
The DOJ Has Betrayed Epstein Survivors — New Mexico Is Suing Over The Latest Issue
Todd Blanche’s Confirmation Vote Gets Postponed Because He Just Won’t Put His Promises In Writing
Paging Dr. Freud: Todd Blanche Calls Himself Trump’s Lawyer At His Attorney General Confirmation Hearing
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post The Senate Confirmed Todd Blanche At 4 am. Nothing Good Happens After Midnight. appeared first on Above the Law.