{"id":29120,"date":"2026-08-05T23:45:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=29120"},"modified":"2026-08-05T23:45:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:45:41","slug":"blanche-confirmation-for-trump-attorney-general-a-work-in-progress-after-defection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=29120","title":{"rendered":"Blanche confirmation for Trump attorney general a &#8216;work in progress&#8217; after defection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">By David Morgan and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) &#8211; President Donald Trump&#8217;s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, faced renewed \u200cuncertainty over his U.S. Senate confirmation on Wednesday after Republican \u200cSenator Susan Collins said on Tuesday she would vote against him, leaving the former \u200bTrump personal lawyer with little margin for error.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">With Republican Senator Mitch McConnell out indefinitely, Blanche can afford only one more Republican defection. Senators Bill Cassidy and Lisa Murkowski, who previously expressed reservations about his nomination, declined \u200cto comment on their \u2060vote on Wednesday. A small number of other senators have also expressed concern about Blanche&#8217;s nomination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Blanche, now serving as \u2060acting attorney general, persuaded Republican holdouts John Cornyn and Thom Tillis to support him by pledging in writing that Trump&#8217;s $1.8 billion &#8220;anti-weaponization&#8221; fund was dead and \u200bthat a \u200brelated tax-immunity deal applied only to \u200bpast tax returns. Both arose \u200cfrom a settlement of Trump&#8217;s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Questions remain about whether the fund could later be revived and why the president deserves a deal from his own administration that could personally save him millions of dollars<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Senate Republican Leader John Thune said he wants to \u200cconfirm Blanche before the chamber leaves \u200bWashington for a month-long recess scheduled to begin \u200bthis week. A vote could \u200bcome in a matter of days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We&#8217;re having conversations with \u200cfolks, the small number of \u200bpeople who will be \u200bundecided in this, and I&#8217;m hopeful we&#8217;ll get there,&#8221; Thune told reporters on Wednesday. &#8220;But again, it&#8217;s a work in progress, and \u200bwe&#8217;re not there \u200cyet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a \u200brequest for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by David Morgan and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff; Editing \u200bby Andy Sullivan and Howard Goller)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David Morgan and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) &#8211; President Donald Trump&#8217;s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, faced renewed \u200cuncertainty over his U.S. Senate confirmation on Wednesday after Republican \u200cSenator Susan Collins said on Tuesday she would vote against him, leaving the former \u200bTrump personal lawyer with little margin for error. With&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/bffc1798306159bf8adfae9e44b3509229bf608f24836b3aab0622933e9540ca\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_jpg\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2Faa3e3d38f2b6ad2fd1f76c7f7357089a","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}