The odds of the Senate confirming Todd Blanche to head the Justice Department before its summer break appear to be dwindling, as the Trump administration struggles to appease GOP holdouts.
And if senators can’t get him through, President Donald Trump threatened to merely wait out the objectors, leaving Blanche in the post as acting attorney general and then trying again once Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, whose terms expire Jan. 3, are no longer in the picture.
“I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.
Despite a flurry of back-and-forth red-lines with the Justice Department, Cornyn said Thursday morning that he still wasn’t satisfied. He wants to see changes to a controversial settlement that created a $1.8 billion “weaponization” compensation fund and immunized Trump and his family from tax audits.
“I don’t know whether they think they can wait us out or … we’ll cave,” Cornyn said of the Trump administration. “But I assure you, we won’t.”
