WASHINGTON (AP) — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will confront questions Wednesday about his brief but turbulent tenure atop the Justice Department during a Senate confirmation hearing that will test President Donald Trump’s grip on Republican lawmakers whose support the nominee will need for the job.Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, has run the department on an interim basis since April, during which time he has accelerated investigations into Trump foes, functioned as the public face of a maligned fund meant to compensate the Republican president’s allies and alarmed press freedom advocates with an aggressive pursuit of news media leaks.Those actions will receive fresh scrutiny at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as Blanche testifies for the opportunity to serve out the duration of Trump’s term. The stakes are high given the upheaval inside the department, where mass firings and resignations have hollowed out the workforce and because of concerns by Democrats and other critics that the department under Blanche’s watch is being weaponized in pursuit of the president’s political opponents. More than 1,200 department alumni have come out against his nomination.
Blanche will need the support of each Republican on the panelBlanche, who is expected to be uniformly voted down by Democrats on the committee, must win the support of all Republicans on the panel for his nomination to advance.A particular focus is on Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who in May lost his primary and has said he won’t decide on Blanche’s nomination until after the hearing, and Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who has opted not to seek reelection. Tillis has been an outspoken critic of a $1.776 billion fund that the Trump administration created to compensate people who feel unjustly persecuted by the criminal justice system and then quickly withdrew. Tillis has said he will not support for attorney general anyone who equivocates on the events of Jan 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to halt the congressional certification of Trump’s election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The senator, however, recently said he doesn’t have any concerns about Blanche’s record regarding the events of that day.With the death of South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, there are 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats on the panel. If even one Republican on the committee votes against Blanche, it could scuttle his nomination.
