Senate confirms former Trump lawyer Todd Blanche as deputy AG

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Senate on Wednesday confirmed President Donald Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, deepening concerns among Democrats about the agency’s political independence.

Blanche, tapped by the president last year to become deputy attorney general, breezed through a vote in the upper chamber, with lawmakers inking his nomination on a 52–46 vote. The former federal prosecutor will serve under Attorney General Pam Bondi, herself confirmed by the Senate last month.

Democrats, who unanimously opposed Blanche’s confirmation, have for months raised concerns about how his relationship with Trump could affect his ability to help oversee the Justice Department in a politically impartial fashion. Blanche represented the president in the New York state criminal case which saw him convicted on 34 felony counts — and was also Trump’s lawyer in a pair of federal cases overseen by the very agency he will now help run.

Blanche has slammed the bevy of prosecutions against Trump, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee during his February nomination hearing that they represented a “gross abuse” of the justice system by officials fulfilling a “political agenda.”

These statements raised questions among lawmakers, particularly Democrats, about whether Blanche would be able or willing to refuse requests from the president — even ones that were unethical or possibly illegal.

Asked during his hearing whether he would resist such pressure, Blanche said he would “follow the law” but did not elaborate.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Democrats rehashed their concerns about the nominee, arguing that he would join a Justice Department already marred by political influence from the White House.

“Since the president has taken office, we have already witnessed the weaponization of justice,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin in remarks on the Senate floor. “Mr. Blanche will not provide the necessary independence to avoid that.”

Durbin, noting that the nominee’s loyalty to Trump was “undying,” argued that he was the wrong person to fill the second-most powerful role at the Justice Department.

Those concerns, however, did little to sway Republicans, who voted unanimously to approve Blanche’s nomination.

During his confirmation hearing, Blanche vowed if confirmed to restore what he said was Americans’ shaken faith in the U.S. justice system and the Justice Department. He reiterated a now-common belief among Republicans that the agency had been “weaponized” under the Joe Biden administration to target Democrats’ political rivals, chiefly Trump.

The nominee argued that the Justice Department in recent years had operated in a manner “completely inconsistent” with the agency’s core tenet of nonpartisanship.

“It’s going to take a long time to grab that credibility back, but the way to grab it back is just to have politics play no role,” Blanche said.

Despite that, the Justice Department under Bondi’s leadership has drawn criticism from lawmakers who have argued that the agency did exactly the opposite in the early months of Trump’s second term in office. Democrats have slammed the agency for its recent effort to dismiss the prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams and a series of firings, as well as moves to fire and reassign FBI agents who were assigned to cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

Democrats have also worried about how the Justice Department would engage with suggestions from the Trump administration that it could refuse to comply with lawful court orders restricting White House executive actions.

Those developments came just weeks after Bondi told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would not “play politics” as head of the Justice Department.

Blanche, now confirmed, joins not only Bondi but also FBI Director Kash Patel at the head of U.S. federal law enforcement. Patel, a former Trump administration official, faced similar scrutiny for his own relationship with the president.

Follow @BenjaminSWeiss