The U.S. Senate on Saturday confirmed President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, as attorney general, despite opposition from Democrats and two Republican senators.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Blanche, who had served as acting attorney general since April.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined all 47 Democrats in voting against his confirmation.
“I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation’s 88th Attorney General,” Blanche wrote on X after the early morning vote.
“I am grateful to the Senate for staying late to complete this process,” he added.
As attorney general, Blanche becomes the nation’s top law enforcement official and will oversee the Justice Department.
Blanche took over the department on an acting basis after Trump dismissed former Attorney General Pam Bondi amid criticism of her handling of the fallout from the scandal surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019.
Before becoming acting attorney general, Blanche served as deputy attorney general and was seen as a loyal Trump ally.
Before Trump’s re-election, Blanche was a member of his legal team in the New York criminal trial over the falsification of business records to conceal hush money payments to a pornographic actress.
Blanche’s nomination also faced resistance from within the Republican Party over a controversial Justice Department proposal to establish a compensation fund for alleged victims of politically motivated prosecutions.
Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina made their support for Blanche conditional on his abandoning the proposal. Blanche recently gave them written assurances that the plan would be dropped.
The Justice Department had originally proposed putting about $1.8 billion into the fund to compensate people deemed to have been targeted by the government for political or ideological reasons.
Critics feared the fund could be used to compensate Trump supporters prosecuted for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump pardoned many of those convicted or charged in connection with the attack after returning to office in 2025.
Blanche also faced criticism over his close relationship with Trump, raising questions about his ability to act independently as attorney general.
Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Blanche’s tenure could be summed up by four words he had once directed at Trump: “I love you, sir.”
Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana recently asked Blanche whether he and Trump were friends.
“I am his lawyer,” Blanche replied, before quickly correcting himself: “was his lawyer.”
Murkowski announced shortly before the vote that she would oppose Blanche, saying the United States needed an attorney general capable of restraining “the worst impulses of this administration.”
She said she did not have confidence that Blanche was the person to do so.
