#senate-judiciary — Trump Fail

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Blanche had already paid the ransom to survive: to win over earlier holdouts John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, he formally rescinded the $1.8 billion fund and clarified the scope of Trump's IRS immunity deal, then scraped out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line 12-10 vote.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.

Two of Trump's Own Republican Senators Are Blocking His Personal Criminal-Defense Lawyer From Becoming Attorney General Until He Promises Not to Build a $1.8 Billion Fund to Pay January 6 Rioters — So Trump Vowed to Keep Him as Unconfirmed Acting AG Indefinitely and Force the Fund Through Congress Anyway

Todd Blanche — Trump's former personal criminal-defense attorney, acting attorney general since Trump fired Pam Bondi in April, and the lawyer a federal judge referred for bar discipline over the sham IRS settlement — cannot get confirmed as permanent attorney general, and it is Republicans stopping him. Two GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, are withholding their votes until they get written assurance that the Justice Department will not resurrect the "anti-weaponization fund": a $1.8 billion program to compensate people who claim the government was "weaponized" against them — built, in practice, to pay January 6 rioters Trump pardoned. That is the same fund a federal judge voided in July as an illegal product of a collusive lawsuit, and that DOJ had said it was abandoning. Rather than give the assurance, Trump escalated. On August 1 he posted that if "Senators Cornyn and Tillis … aren't going to approve Todd Blanche … then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill … PASSED." In other words: confirm my lawyer and let me pay the rioters, or I keep my lawyer running the Justice Department without confirmation and try to pay the rioters through Congress instead. Tillis said flatly that Blanche will not be confirmed as things stand. The standoff is a rare moment of Republican resistance — and a window into just how far the corruption had to go before even Trump's own party balked.