Senate Sets Tuesday Meeting to Consider Blanche’s AG Nomination

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has set an Aug. 4 executive business meeting to consider Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, according to the committee’s website.

The committee had been scheduled to vote on Blanche’s nomination on July 29, but the vote was canceled after Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said they might withhold their votes, which are necessary for the nomination to advance.

President Donald Trump said on July 30 that he wouldn’t object to temporarily withdrawing Blanche’s nomination until the two Republicans leave Congress next year. The White House later released a statement saying the Senate should confirm his nomination “without delay.”

Responding to Trump’s comment, Cornyn said on X that the president “is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis.”

The two senators have raised concerns about an $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” settlement in Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, which would provide money for individuals who claimed to have been targeted by the U.S. government’s “weaponization and lawfare.”

The president told the Cabinet during a July 31 meeting that the fund was already dead.

“It is dead,” he said. “But I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused … and I’d like to see them compensated for their pain.”

Trump posted on Truth Social on July 31, defending the fund and calling on the Senate to approve Blanche’s nomination. He said the fund was intended for “American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed” by the Biden administration.

Tillis said the post suggests the fund was still active, and they sought its formal termination.

“The President made it clear today that the so-called Anti Weaponization Fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it,” Tillis said on X. “Anyone who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison, not getting a check from the federal government.”

Blanche told Congress in June that the government had scrapped its plans for the fund amid a bipartisan backlash, and government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the fund are now moot.

Blanche has served in an acting capacity since his predecessor, Pam Bondi, was fired on April 2.

Trump said at the time that Bondi would move to an “important new job in the private sector,” which would be announced in the near future. Bondi later revealed she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and was seeking treatment.

Both Tillis and Cornyn lost their bid for reelection earlier this year after Trump endorsed their opponents during the primaries.

Jack Phillips and Stacy Robinson contributed to this report.