Todd Blanche Sworn In as Attorney General After 50-49 Senate Vote, Faces Epstein Files and Trump Loyalty Tests

Todd Blanche was sworn in as the 88th attorney general on Monday, closing out a four-month stretch as acting AG that began when Pam Bondi was fired in April. Judge Emil Bove, another former Trump defense lawyer, administered the oath behind closed doors at the White House, according to Forbes and Courthouse News.

The ceremony wrapped a confirmation process that nearly fell apart. The Senate voted 50-49 early Saturday morning after an overnight session, according to CBS News. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted no, joining every Democrat in opposition.

That left Blanche's fate in the hands of Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who stayed silent until a Friday floor speech. Cassidy, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger earlier this year, framed his yes vote as pragmatic rather than enthusiastic. "Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche," Cassidy said, according to CBS News. "It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche."

The opposition wasn't just partisan noise. Murkowski said she lacked "confidence" that Blanche would "check the worst impulses of this administration," and Collins said he had already "eroded the department's independence," according to Courthouse News. Those are two Republican senators, not Democrats, making that case on the record.

The fund that almost sank him

The biggest GOP holdout wasn't about Trump's political enemies. It was money. The DOJ's roughly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, created out of Trump's settlement with the IRS over the 2019 leak of his tax returns, was supposed to pay out people who claimed the federal government wronged them.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina worried the fund could end up cutting checks to people convicted of violent crimes tied to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, according to Courthouse News. Blanche told the Senate in June the fund was "dead," but Cornyn and Tillis didn't drop their objections until Blanche formally rescinded the directive that created it last week, per CBS News.

That's a legitimate fiscal and legal concern, not manufactured outrage. An $1.8 billion slush fund with vague eligibility rules, tied to a legal settlement the president himself benefited from, deserved the scrutiny it got. Blanche killing the fund on paper resolved the immediate problem, but questions about how the settlement itself was negotiated remain part of ongoing litigation, according to Forbes.

What's actually different now

Blanche spent four months running the DOJ in an acting capacity. Formal confirmation changes his legal footing, not his track record. Under his watch as acting AG, the department indicted former FBI Director James Comey for a second time since Trump returned to office, according to both The Independent and PBS.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois argued at a Judiciary Committee hearing that Blanche "continues to operate as the president's personal lawyer," according to Forbes. Blanche hasn't denied the closeness. He's said publicly that he sees no problem with Trump taking an interest in DOJ matters, calling it the president's "right" and "his duty," per PBS and The Independent.

Defenders of Blanche make a real argument here. His years representing Trump personally, including during the 34-count Manhattan hush-money conviction in May 2024, gave him a front-row seat to what he and his allies call the weaponization of the justice system against Trump under the Biden DOJ. From that view, a loyalist with Trump's trust might be better positioned to push back on presidential overreach than Bondi was, precisely because Trump already trusts him. Whether that theory holds up in practice hasn't been tested yet.

What's next

Forbes identified the concrete tests ahead: continued handling of the Epstein files, litigation over the IRS settlement, prosecutions of Trump's political opponents, disputes over Trump's White House ballroom project, and election-related lawsuits heading into the November midterms. Anadolu Agency noted Trump was reportedly "disappointed" in Bondi's handling of the Epstein files before her firing in April, a grievance that hasn't gone away with a new AG in the chair.

None of those fights have been resolved. No court has ruled on the IRS settlement litigation's core claims, and no new charging decisions on Epstein-related matters have been announced since Blanche's swearing-in. The open question is the one senators like Collins and Murkowski raised out loud. Whether Blanche, now permanently in the job, treats DOJ independence as something worth defending when Trump wants otherwise, or whether the pattern from his acting tenure just continues under a Senate-confirmed title.