#bill-cassidy — Trump Fail

The Check Broke: Todd Blanche — Trump's Personal Criminal-Defense Lawyer, Referred for Bar Discipline Over a Sham IRS Deal, Who Defied a Court Order to Bury the Epstein Files and Says Trump Has a "Right" to Order Prosecutions of His Enemies — Was Confirmed as Attorney General 50-49, With Bill Cassidy Casting the Decisive Vote

In the early hours of Saturday, August 8, 2026, the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general of the United States by a vote of 50-49 — the narrowest possible margin. Blanche is Trump's former personal criminal-defense lawyer. He was referred by a federal judge for bar discipline over the collusive IRS "settlement" that laundered Trump tax immunity and tried to create a $1.8 billion fund for the January 6 rioters. His Justice Department defied a court order and the transparency law Trump signed to keep the Epstein files sealed. And in his first press conference as acting AG he asserted that the president has a "right" and "duty" to order the department to investigate his enemies — a doctrine the DOJ is now executing against Comey, Letitia James, and others. Two Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voted no, joining every Democrat; Murkowski said the country needs an attorney general "who will check the worst impulses of this administration." It was not enough. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — who voted to convict Trump in the 2021 impeachment and had been the last uncertain Republican — announced Friday he would back Blanche, becoming the decisive vote. With Sen. Mitch McConnell absent (recovering after a June fall), Cassidy's support made it 50-49, sparing even a Vance tiebreak. The nomination was in genuine peril for weeks; in the end it held by one vote. The man most of the corruption catalogued in this archive runs through is now, with the full permanent authority of the office and no "acting" qualifier, the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States.

Todd Blanche Killed His $1.8 Billion Rioter Fund to Buy Off Two Republican Holdouts and Squeaked Out of Committee 12-10 — Then a Second Republican, Lisa Murkowski, Came Out Against Him Anyway, Saying "The Country Needs an Attorney General Who Will Check the Worst Impulses of This Administration," Leaving Trump's Personal Lawyer's Path to Run the DOJ Hanging by a Single Vote

On August 7, 2026, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced she will vote against Todd Blanche — Trump's former personal criminal-defense lawyer and acting attorney general — for the permanent job. She becomes the second Republican "no," joining Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), and her reasons cut to the heart of it: "The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration." Murkowski cited the Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the sweeping tax-audit immunity deal engineered for Trump, and the proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund to compensate the president's allies. What makes the defection sting is that Blanche had already paid the ransom to survive: to win over earlier holdouts John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, he formally rescinded the $1.8 billion fund and clarified the scope of Trump's IRS immunity deal, then scraped out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line 12-10 vote. Killing the fund got him out of committee; it did not make him confirmable. With Republicans holding a 53-47 majority and Mitch McConnell absent for medical reasons, Blanche can afford to lose only two GOP votes — and Collins and Murkowski are those two. His confirmation now rests entirely on Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), an outgoing senator who has bucked Trump before. Trump's hand-picked loyalist to run the Justice Department is one Republican vote from failing.

For the First Time in History, Both Chambers of Congress Passed a War Powers Resolution to Stop a President's War — Trump's Own Party Helped Do It

On June 23, 2026, the Senate voted 50-48 to direct President Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran — the first time in the 53-year history of the War Powers Act that a resolution to halt a president's war has passed both chambers of Congress. The House had passed the same concurrent resolution on June 3 by 215-208. Because it is a concurrent resolution, it does not require Trump's signature. Four Republican senators — Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy, and Rand Paul — broke ranks to join the Democrats; the measure cleared the chamber partly because Mitch McConnell and Dave McCormick, who had blocked earlier attempts, did not vote. It was the tenth time the Senate had tried to stop the war. Sen. Tim Kaine, who led the effort, said: "The most solemn power for Congress is Congress has the power to declare war, not the president." Kaine pressed the vote even with talks underway in Switzerland and pointed to the administration's request for $80 billion in emergency spending to rebuild munitions depleted since the war began on Feb. 28. Trump called the House version "a meaningless vote" and branded the Republicans who crossed him "GRANDSTANDERS." The rebuke is historic precisely because it required Congress to formally tell a president to stop a war that his own intelligence community said was never necessary.