The confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General should have been a straightforward affair. After all, the man has already been serving effectively in an acting capacity, cleaning up the mess left by years of DOJ politicization. But leave it to the GOP establishment to turn a simple up-or-down vote into yet another opportunity to undermine the agenda that voters overwhelmingly endorsed last November.
President Trump didn’t mince words Friday when he called out Texas Senator John Cornyn for holding Blanche’s nomination hostage over the now-defunct Anti-Weaponization Fund–a $1.776 billion settlement mechanism intended to compensate victims of Biden-era DOJ persecution. Cornyn, along with North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, has demanded written assurances from the Justice Department that the fund can never be revived, effectively trying to tie the hands of an administration that hasn’t even finished staffing its cabinet yet.
Here’s what makes this spectacle particularly galling: Cornyn and Tillis aren’t fighting some radical progressive agenda. They’re fighting their own party’s president and the millions of Americans who voted for him specifically because he promised to hold the deep state accountable. The Anti-Weaponization Fund was designed to pay restitution to ‘the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives have been ruined,’ as Trump put it. These are people like the January 6 defendants who received disproportionate sentences, or the pro-life activists targeted by the FBI while actual clinic bombers from decades past received slaps on the wrist.
Cornyn’s stated concern–that the fund’s settlement language constitutes a binding contract that could be enforced later–might sound like prudent legal stewardship if you squint hard enough. But let’s be honest about what’s really happening here. This is the same John Cornyn who Trump endorsed over a primary challenger, the same establishment Republican who suddenly discovered constitutional scruples when faced with an opportunity to help actual conservative victims of government abuse. Tillis went even further, claiming Trump’s defense of the fund proves ‘it’s still alive,’ which is exactly the kind of circular logic that makes ordinary Americans despise Washington.
The president has since walked back his threat to pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it in the next Congress, which is probably the right tactical move. But the underlying tension isn’t going away. The GOP establishment never wanted Trump in the first place, and they certainly don’t want him actually delivering on his promises to drain the swamp and hold the administrative state accountable. Every confirmation battle, every procedural delay, every ‘concerned’ statement from senators who’ve been in office since the Clinton administration is part of a larger effort to run out the clock on meaningful reform.
Blanche himself has already testified that the Justice Department won’t move forward with the fund in its current form. That should have been enough for senators genuinely interested in governing rather than grandstanding. But Cornyn and Tillis aren’t interested in solutions–they’re interested in creating friction, in being seen as ‘independent’ voices who stand up to the president, in currying favor with the same media outlets that will turn on them the moment they step out of line.
The American people delivered a mandate last November. They want the DOJ cleaned up. They want the weaponization of federal law enforcement against political opponents to end. They want accountability for the bureaucrats who turned the justice system into an arm of the Democratic Party. And they want an Attorney General who will actually enforce the law rather than twist it to serve partisan ends.
Todd Blanche appears to be that Attorney General. The only question now is whether Senate Republicans will get out of the way and let him do his job, or whether they’ll continue playing these petty obstruction games while the deep state breathes a sigh of relief. Based on Friday’s developments, the answer remains frustratingly uncertain.
Providence watches over the bold.
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