WASHINGTON — Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) announced Friday that he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general, clearing the path for him to be confirmed.“This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “All things considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche.”“I’ll be criticized for this vote. What’s new,” he said, before appearing to get choked up on the Senate floor. Cassidy’s capitulation is a win for President Donald Trump and the latest embarrassment for Senate Republicans, who occasionally show a willingness to stand up to the president but back down almost every time.And it’s a remarkable coda to Cassidy’s career. He voted to convict Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the Capitol, a vote that drove Trump to endorse Cassidy’s opponent in his Republican primary this year, which Cassidy lost. Now the Louisiana senator will vote to confirm Trump’s former personal lawyer to be the attorney general ― even after Blanche created a special fund for Trump to make payouts to the rioters. Cassidy was the last Republican publicly wavering on whether to support Blanche, and the vote that would decide his fate. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced earlier Friday that she won’t vote for him, days after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was a “no” vote, too.The reality is nothing much changes at the Justice Department even if Blanche is confirmed. He is currently the acting attorney general, and because he was previously confirmed as deputy attorney general, Blanche could have carried on in an acting role for the rest of Trump’s presidency.The biggest obstacle to Blanche’s confirmation had been outrage among Republican senators over his creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” for Trump to pay off his supporters who’d attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Alongside the fund, which Blanche created as part of a bogus “settlement” of a lawsuit Trump filed against his own administration, Blanche gave Trump and his family business immunity from any ongoing tax audits, potentially saving the president millions. “Mr. Blanche showed poor judgment in approving the anti-weaponization slush fund and exempting the president from IRS audits,” Cassidy said. “Mr. Blanche said these were mistakes, and he has made efforts to kill the slush fund.”Other senators also said the acting attorney general told them he made a mistake by establishing the slush fund, but Blanche denied having said so. When Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked him about it in a written questionnaire following up on his confirmation hearing, Blanche wrote: “I contest the accuracy of this statement.”In any event, Blanche’s grant of tax immunity to Trump and his company remains in effect, and the slush fund could be revived.