Trump puts immunity from IRS probes over his fight for Blanche
President Donald Trump’s desire to avoid the kinds of criminal prosecutions he faced the last time he left office has become the biggest impediment to getting his own attorney general pick confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
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Trump on Thursday said in a social media post he was willing to withdraw Todd Blanche’s Senate nomination in the face of demands from key Republican senators for written changes to alter a controversial
A pivotal committee vote on Blanche’s nomination, which had been set for Thursday morning,
Trump’s post on Truth Social indicated that he would prefer to pull back Blanche’s nomination than allow the acting attorney general to make those changes.
“We were having a perfectly good conversation with Todd Blanche,” Cornyn said to reporters outside the Senate Thursday. “I think he’s a smart guy, good lawyer, and we just wanted to confirm what he already swore to. And now the president’s pulling him back, thinking that well, he can outweigh Tillis and me.”
Tillis said, “the president’s not winning on this issue. It is killing some of our candidates because they can’t explain it.”
Withdraw nomination
Trump floated the idea of withdrawing Blanche’s nomination until Cornyn and Tillis leave the Senate, which will occur in January. Tillis decided to retire, while Cornyn lost his primary in May to a Trump-backed challenger.
However, there’s no guarantee the Senate will confirm Blanche when the new Congress convenes, especially if Democrats take control of the chamber. Cornyn said in an X post on Thursday that Trump “is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis.”
Indeed, another Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also expressed reservations and said her concerns about the settlement have not been addressed.
“The IRS settlement agreement has not been handled well,” Murkowski told reporters at the Capitol. “I don’t think it reflects well on the administration.”
To be sure, Blanche will be able to continue serving as acting head of the Justice Department if his nomination is withdrawn. But Trump’s intransigence is the latest blow to the integrity and independence of the Justice Department and to Blanche, who has been a loyal Trump ally and carried out many of his top priorities.
Without Cornyn’s and Tillis’ backing, Blanche can’t get voted out of the Judiciary Committee, which would almost certainly kill his nomination. The White House jumped into action Wednesday, sending Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to meet with Blanche and top Republicans after Cornyn canceled an earlier meeting with Blanche and declared to reporters he was being stonewalled on his demands.
Wiles and Blanche declined to comment after the meeting.
The fight isn’t really over Blanche. Cornyn hasn’t said he thinks that Blanche is unqualified or has done anything terrible. He’s shrugged off other controversies, such as Blanche’s handling of the release of files related to the sex-trafficking operation of late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Dutifully adhered
Blanche has dutifully adhered to Trump’s direction during his tenure as acting attorney general. He’s also made two astonishing admissions during the confirmation process — that he doesn’t know who wrote the sweeping immunity language — which he signed — and that he didn’t see the need to put changes to it in writing. He’s since backtracked on the latter under pressure from the lawmakers.
The Justice Department has agreed to rescind in writing a provision of the settlement that would have created a $1.8 billion fund to make payments to people and entities who claim they were victims of government “weaponization.”
But Cornyn’s demand to narrow the tax immunity provision has become the sticking point. That, in turn, could open up Trump and his family to criminal investigations and potential prosecution by a future president — similar to the cases he faced under former President Joe Biden before winning a second term.
Trump’s endorsement of scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton shortly before his runoff with Cornyn likely doomed the senator’s chances of reelection, while potentially costing the GOP a Senate seat and hundreds of millions in campaign cash it would rather spend elsewhere.
After his defeat, Cornyn complained bitterly that loyalty with Trump is a one-way street, after he bent over backward to support the president for years.
