The Senate's Confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General Was a Shameful Capitulation
Source: Ruth Marcus. "The Senate’s Shameful Acquiescence to Todd Blanche as Attorney General | The New Yorker." August 7, 2026. www.newyorker.com
The Gist
Ruth Marcus argues that the Senate's confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General was a disgraceful failure of oversight, because senators knew exactly how badly he had already performed in the role but voted for him anyway—mostly out of fear that Trump's next pick could be even worse, rather than out of any genuine belief that Blanche was qualified. She points to specific instances of misconduct, like a lawsuit settlement that gave Trump improper tax immunity, and shows how the concessions senators got in exchange for their votes were weak or transparently transactional.
Conclusion
The Senate's confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General was a shameful act of acquiescence that ratified serious misconduct and abandoned the Senate's constitutional 'advice and consent' oversight role.
Premises
- As acting Attorney General and Deputy AG, Blanche presided over a disastrous record: flimsy politically motivated prosecutions of Trump's adversaries, purging of perceived enemies from the federal workforce, and courtroom missteps that eroded DOJ credibility before judges.
- Blanche helped create a $1.776-billion 'anti-weaponization' slush fund that could open the door to reparations for January 6th defendants, and this fund was never fully or credibly rescinded despite senator concerns.
- Blanche signed a document granting Trump, his family, and his company immunity from over a hundred million dollars in tax liability, in an arrangement a federal judge called 'collusive' and found Blanche's testimony about it 'misleading' or 'disingenuous.'
- The concessions extracted by wavering Republican senators (Cornyn, Tillis, Murkowski) were weak, symbolic, or transactional (e.g., unsigned statements, federal funds directed to Alaska) rather than substantive changes in Blanche's conduct or accountability.
- Several senators who ultimately voted to confirm Blanche explicitly did so not because they believed he was fit for the role, but because they feared Trump would appoint someone even worse (e.g., Ed Martin), revealing that the vote was driven by strategic capitulation rather than genuine endorsement.
- Unlike typical confirmations that rely on speculative assessments of a nominee's future conduct, senators had direct, extensive evidence of Blanche's actual performance and judgment from his time running the DOJ, making their choice to confirm him a clear-eyed ratification of known misconduct rather than a leap of faith.
Assumptions
- The Senate's 'advice and consent' function is meant to serve as a substantive check on presidential power, not merely a formality.
- A senator's vote to confirm should reflect genuine confidence in the nominee's fitness, not merely be the 'lesser of two evils' calculation relative to a hypothetical worse alternative.
- The specific incidents cited (the slush fund, the IRS immunity deal, the Comey indictment, treatment of Epstein files) are representative of a broader pattern of politicization and unfitness rather than isolated anomalies.
- Verbal or written assurances from an administration with a demonstrated pattern of broken promises (e.g., RFK Jr.'s vaccine assurances) should not be trusted as genuine constraints on future behavior.
- The use of federal funds/settlements to secure a senator's vote (as with Murkowski) constitutes an inappropriate form of political leverage rather than legitimate governance.