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President Trump announced Wednesday evening that he is nominating Todd Blanche to serve as the permanent Attorney General of the United States, elevating the former federal prosecutor from his current acting role to the top job at the Department of Justice. The announcement came during remarks at a Rose Garden event, where Trump made clear his confidence in Blanche’s ability to lead the department. He’s Acting Attorney General, Trump said. Tomorrow, I’m instructing Dan and everybody else that’s involved in that very complicated process that we are going to make him permanent attorney general.
Blanche is no stranger to high-stakes legal battles. Before joining the administration, he served as President Trump’s personal attorney in New York, navigating the complex web of politically motivated prosecutions that have defined the former president’s post-White House life. When Trump fired Pam Bondi in April, Blanche was the natural choice to step in as Acting Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, bringing both legal expertise and personal loyalty to a department that has sorely needed both.
The nomination is already drawing predictable opposition from the usual suspects. Senator Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who has made a habit of obstructing Trump’s nominees, is already throwing cold water on the choice. Tillis, who previously derailed Ed Martin’s nomination for DC US Attorney over his statements about January 6, is now targeting Blanche on the same grounds. He told reporters that Blanche was in dangerous waters with his January 6 statements and called the issue a circuit breaker for him.
Yet Tillis’s own words reveal the weakness of his position. He acknowledged that Blanche was instrumental in kind of de-escalating the whole Powell matter, referring to the former Fed Chair Jerome Powell situation. Outside of that, I mean, he’s got good credentials, Tillis admitted, before falling back to his tired January 6 routine. The message is clear: even Trump’s critics can’t find much to criticize in Blanche’s actual performance, so they reach for the same old playbook.
The American people should ask themselves a simple question: what kind of Attorney General do they want? Someone who will enforce the law impartially, or someone who meets the approval of a Senate that has spent years enabling the very corruption Trump was elected to dismantle? Blanche has demonstrated his commitment to the rule of law through his work for the President and his handling of the department’s most sensitive matters. If the Senate’s concern is that he might actually hold the powerful accountable, perhaps that says more about the Senate than it does about Blanche.
Trump’s nomination of Blanche represents a continuation of his promise to transform the Department of Justice from a political weapon into an institution that serves the American people. The confirmation battle ahead will test whether Republicans in the Senate are more loyal to their constituents or to the permanent bureaucracy that has long controlled Washington. For Americans who voted for change in 2024, the choice couldn’t be clearer.
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