2.1 The Structure of Congress
2.2.3 Oversight
3.3.1 Relationships with Other Institutions
The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as United States Attorney General by 50 votes to 49 in the early hours of 8 August. Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal defence lawyer before becoming Deputy Attorney General, and had run the Justice Department in an acting capacity since April, when Trump removed Pam Bondi. Every Democrat voted against him, along with the Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.
Confirming senior appointments is a power the Senate holds alone, and this vote shows how it usually operates. Nobody set out to defeat Blanche. Instead John Cornyn and Thom Tillis stalled the Judiciary Committee until they had written confirmation that a $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund was dead, while Collins and Murkowski objected on grounds of departmental independence. Blanche’s backers argued the alternative was another unconfirmed acting attorney general, which quietly concedes that a president who governs through acting officials escapes the check altogether.
Checks and balances therefore functioned, but modestly. The appointment power prevailed, as it generally does, yet it cost written undertakings, hostile hearings and a one-vote margin in which two senators could set the terms. The process did not produce an independent Attorney General, but it did produce commitments against which the department can now be measured.