Posted on 08/01/2026 6:57:24 AM PDT by Red Badger
President Trump may have found the cleanest answer yet to the Senate Republicans trying to hold up Todd Blanche.
Keep Blanche exactly where he is.
Blanche is not some random White House aide temporarily dropped into the top job. He is the Senate-confirmed Deputy Attorney General, and federal law puts him first in line when the Attorney General’s office is vacant.
The legal point behind President Trump’s hardball option is laid out in this clip:
This is where the obstruction campaign runs into the actual statute.
The official U.S. Code says that when the Attorney General’s office is vacant, the Deputy Attorney General may exercise all the duties of that office. The same provision identifies the deputy as the Attorney General’s first assistant.
The statute also sets the next steps if neither the Attorney General nor the deputy is available, sending the duties to the Associate Attorney General and then permitting a further Justice Department succession order. Congress therefore wrote a specific chain for this exact department instead of leaving the job to an improvised White House designation.
Unlike the Federal Vacancies Reform Act route used for many temporary appointees, Section 508 does not contain the familiar acting-service clock. Blanche is serving by virtue of his confirmed position as deputy and the Justice Department’s own succession law.
The Congressional Research Service explains that courts have recognized Section 508 as an independent source of authority for a Deputy Attorney General to perform the Attorney General’s duties. The report specifically discusses a case in which a court upheld an acting Attorney General’s actions after the older Vacancies Act time limit had expired because Section 508 separately authorized the deputy’s service.
That does not transform Blanche into a Senate-confirmed Attorney General. It means he can continue exercising the office’s duties as Acting Attorney General while the vacancy remains, potentially for the rest of President Trump’s term, unless a court imposes a limit that Congress did not write into Section 508.
President Trump nominated Blanche for the permanent job on June 8.
The White House says Blanche has won support from a broad coalition of law enforcement groups, state attorneys general, former Justice Department officials and members of Congress. Its July 14 endorsement roundup describes him as a veteran prosecutor and defense attorney already leading crackdowns on cartels, transnational gangs, violent crime and fraud.
The Fraternal Order of Police backed him on behalf of more than 382,000 members, while the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association also urged swift confirmation. A group of 23 state attorneys general said Blanche had the leadership and management experience required to run the nation’s federal law enforcement enterprise.
President Trump formally sent Blanche’s nomination to the Senate on June 8, naming the Florida lawyer to become Attorney General. The administration’s case is that the Senate is not being asked to gamble on an unknown nominee because Blanche is already doing the job and already has the support of the officers and officials who work with the department.
But Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have helped stall Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Cornyn made clear that his objection centers on provisions in President Trump’s tax-lawsuit settlement, not Blanche’s basic qualifications:
Axios reports that President Trump floated temporarily withdrawing Blanche’s nomination, leaving him in the acting role, and sending the nomination back after Cornyn and Tillis leave office in January. The administration is still pressing senators to confirm Blanche while President Trump has defended the principle of compensating Americans harmed by government weaponization.
Cornyn and Tillis have demanded written assurances that disputed portions of the tax-lawsuit settlement will not move forward. President Trump said Friday that the fund was dead, although he added that he wished victims of government abuse could still be compensated.
The same report says Tillis argued that President Trump’s defense of the idea showed the fund remained alive, even while Tillis described Blanche as forthright in their discussions. President Trump’s fallback takes the senators’ leverage over confirmation and separates it from Blanche’s current legal authority to run the Justice Department.
That is the leverage Cornyn and Tillis apparently did not count on.
They can delay a committee vote. They can refuse to support the nomination.
They can demand more written assurances.
What they cannot do by themselves is remove Blanche from the Deputy Attorney General position the Senate already confirmed him to hold.
The Justice Department identifies Blanche as both the Acting Attorney General and the 40th Deputy Attorney General, overseeing more than 100,000 employees. That workforce spans Main Justice, the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals, ATF, Bureau of Prisons and 93 U.S. Attorney’s Offices.
Blanche began his Justice Department career as a contractor and paralegal before becoming a federal prosecutor and supervisor in the Southern District of New York. He later worked in private practice, including representing President Trump in three criminal cases filed in 2023 and 2024.
The department says Blanche is now implementing President Trump’s priorities on illegal immigration, transnational drug organizations, violent crime and taxpayer fraud. His dual status as acting chief and confirmed deputy is the heart of the legal advantage now available to President Trump.
The Senate can still confirm Blanche and end the standoff cleanly.
If Cornyn and Tillis refuse, President Trump does not have to surrender his chosen Justice Department leader.
He can wait them out.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
LOL. There are many ways to accomplish things in the festering mess called WDC.
Awesome! Makes sense why he chose him too...if he tried anyone else the RINOs would object unless they got their pick in there.
This is the same thing and happened when Major General (now Colonel) Fiscus, the Air Force judge advocate general, was removed for sexual harassment. The deputy judge advocate general, Jack Rives, performed the duties of TJAG for nearly 5 years before the Senate confirmed him. We called him PDOT, for “performing the duties of TJAG”.
Far and away, the biggest problem Republicans have is Republicans.
Leaving him as acting...works for me.
If Repubs didn’t fight each other who else would there be to fight?
Assistant Democrat Socialists.
“Far and away, the biggest problem Republicans have is Republicans.”
NOT EVEN CLOSE, but the Dems are VERY HAPPY that so many Republican voters think that way, as that’s how they win elections.
In the recent past Democrats virtually never voted as a block - even Clarence Thomas got a bunch of Democrats to get on the Supreme Court, and he needed them (the Republicans weren’t even close to a majority at the time). Now the Democrats vote as a block against ANYONE they wouldn’t nominate themselves. The problem is the DEMOCRATS, and the Republicans who keep ENABLING them, whether they realize it or not.
Let’s hope this is true.
RINOs.
Or he could recess appoint him. If Thine and Johnson would recess the two houses. The recess appointment would make him the actual AG through the end of the next Congress, that is, through the end of Trump’s term
A f’ing men to that.
True.
Excellent news!
Excellent!
Cornyn’s final skirmish is reduced to a temper tantrum. How pathetic.
EV
Cornyn made clear that his objection centers on provisions in President Trump’s tax-lawsuit settlement, not Blanche’s basic qualifications:
....SNIP......
Cornyn and Tillis have demanded written assurances that disputed portions of the tax-lawsuit settlement will not move forward. President Trump said Friday that the fund was dead, although he added that he wished victims of government abuse could still be compensated.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
doesn’t the source of this $1.5 BB fund for victims of government abuse come from the $1.5 BB remedy awarded to Trump from settling his lawsuit victory over the IRS for improperly disclosing his tax returns?
so, the crooked MSM conveniently ignores THE FACT that the funding comes from trump’s generosity & fairness by directing his own money to help the other victims of government abuse
(much like him not taking a salary for being POTUS being directed to charity)
PS: much different than newscum directing Cali taxpayer $$ to his wife’s NGO’S
Individuals in Congress do not want that fund to be created. Mainly because it can be used to finance lawsuits against them..............
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.