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President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department survived a crucial hurdle on Tuesday after reaching an agreement with key holdouts, but whether he reaches the finish line remains an open question.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, after last-minute delays and drama, confirmed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a 12-10 vote, sending him to the Senate floor for his final test. His success on committee remained in the air until the weekend, when a deal to win over Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, was announced.
And the duo accepted the terms of the deal, which would permanently rescind the nearly $2 billion anti-weaponization fund and narrow the scope of Trump and his family’s audit immunity — two major components of his settlement with the IRS that Blanche rolled out earlier this year.
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Some lawmakers, however, are questioning the agreement and whether Trump will actually comply.
Tillis said of the anti-weaponization fund that, “we’ve got enough data in the record to know it’s rescinded.” But he acknowledged that, “Other people are asking about the audit component, but it’s another area where I put a lot of faith in John Cornyn.”
“I think that he believes that we’re at a place where it’s narrowly defined, and it would be very difficult for anybody to construe it as some sort of get out of audit free — for any kind of future — I know it’s retrospective, it is not prospective,” Cornyn said.
“And I believe that only the parties to the agreement may be in a position to be exempted. So, that’s, you know, that’s enough for me,” he continued.
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The duo’s colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee have a divided outlook on the nature of the deal, given Trump’s desire to revive the fund and because the audit immunity wasn’t fully buried.
“Cornyn and Tillis seem to have gotten nothing meaningful,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. “You know, the tax immunity deal is still unlimited, in terms of past potential liability. And the slush fund — the thug fund as I call it — is still alive and well, so far as Donald Trump is concerned. And he’s the one who counts.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News Digital Trump “could renege on their agreement.”
“I’m not saying he will or he won’t, what’s stopping the president from doing anything? But it was important to Cornyn and important to Tillis,” Kennedy said. “And I’m glad they got cooperation from, finally, from DOJ. And I think I’ve heard some other senators who have grumbled a little bit about not voting for Blanche, but I think they will. He’ll be confirmed.”
To Kennedy’s latter point, Blanche’s trajectory to becoming the permanent attorney general still isn’t guaranteed.
A handful of Senate Republicans are not outright declaring their support for his nomination. And as usual, that turns into a math problem on the Senate floor.
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Right now, Blanche can only afford to lose two votes on the floor. That’s because Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is still missing in action while he recovers from a fall at his Washington, D.C., home in June.
And the numbers look tough going forward. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Curtis, R-Utah, and Bill Cassidy, R-La., are still on the fence about Blanche.
Murkowski told reporters that she wants “to find out a little bit more about the negotiations,” over the weekend that led to the deal.
“I think certainly the fact that he has signed this order, basically disbanding [the fund] — that’s a pretty good step,” Murkowski said.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wants to get rolling on the Blanche confirmation as soon as possible, given the laundry list of to-do items he and Republicans are trying to check off before leaving Washington, D.C., for a break until September.
Because of the schedule and outlying variables, he couldn’t guarantee that Blanche’s confirmation would get done before September.
“Ideally, we’d like to get him done, and particularly if he comes out, which looks like he now will, affirmatively out of the committee,” Thune said. “Then I’d like to figure out a way, a path forward to get him done.”
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