{"id":763,"date":"2026-07-31T12:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=763"},"modified":"2026-07-31T12:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T12:08:09","slug":"cornyn-wont-cave-on-blanche-he-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=763","title":{"rendered":"Cornyn won\u2019t \u2018cave\u2019 on Blanche, he says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The odds of the Senate confirming Todd Blanche to head the Justice Department before its summer break appear to be dwindling, as the Trump administration struggles to appease GOP holdouts.<\/p>\n

Read more CDC, public health preparedness nominees advance in Senate<\/a><\/p>\n

And if senators can\u2019t get him through, President Donald Trump threatened to merely wait out the objectors, leaving Blanche in the post as acting attorney general and then trying again once Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, whose terms expire Jan. 3, are no longer in the picture.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd\u2019s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Despite a flurry of back-and-forth red-lines with the Justice Department, Cornyn said Thursday morning that he still wasn\u2019t satisfied. He wants to see changes to a controversial settlement that created a $1.8 billion \u201cweaponization\u201d compensation fund and immunized Trump and his family from tax audits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know whether they think they can wait us out or \u2026 we\u2019ll cave,\u201d Cornyn said of the Trump administration. \u201cBut I assure you, we won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, you want to be recalcitrant, you know, win a battle, lose a war \u2026 Everybody has that right to do it. It makes no sense to me,\u201d Tillis said in response to Trump\u2019s post. \u201cThe president\u2019s not winning on this issue. \u2026 And now it looks like they weren\u2019t being honest when they said [the fund] was inoperative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornyn wants Blanche, who brokered the settlement announced in May, to commit \u201cin writing\u201d to certain guardrails on its scope. Without that, Cornyn and Tillis signaled they would vote down Blanche\u2019s bid in committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tillis said the issue has since been elevated above Blanche, where \u201cat least one person in the White House, not the president,\u201d has yet to be convinced. And Cornyn suggested he and Tillis aren\u2019t the only Republican senators who have concerns, even if others haven\u2019t aired them as publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever told the president this was a good posture couldn\u2019t answer my phones,\u201d Tillis said. \u201cIt comes down to one or two bad advisers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., sounded a more hopeful note, even after Trump\u2019s post Thursday morning. He said it\u2019s still the \u201cgoal obviously to get him confirmed, but we got to get him out of the committee first \u2014 and that\u2019s going to require a resolution on the issues that Senators Cornyn and Tillis raised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a path forward,\u201d Thune said. \u201cI think we could get him confirmed, if not obviously this week now, but next week still.\u201d<\/p>\n

The snafu already forced Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone a markup on Blanche\u2019s nomination that had been scheduled for Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Read more IRS modernization bill approved by Senate panel<\/a><\/p>\n

If Blanche were to back up his sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee by putting assurances in writing, that \u201cwould satisfy my concerns, because he said the weaponization fund is dead,\u201d Cornyn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, Cornyn said the administration was \u201creluctant to change\u201d the settlement, adding DOJ has not committed to ensuring the audit protections don\u2019t extend beyond the parties to the lawsuit or guard against action from government entities other than the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were very close to resolving our differences in a way that was acceptable to the Department of Justice, but it\u2019s clear that the president decided that was unacceptable. In other words, he\u2019s not willing to permanently give up the weaponization fund or the enhanced audit protection,\u201d Cornyn said Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Without a favorable vote from the Judiciary Committee, the Senate could in theory still act on Blanche\u2019s nomination on the floor, but it would require more procedural steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now I\u2019m concentrating on the next few days to get this nomination through, and I\u2019m not going to consider anything else,\u201d Grassley said, when asked if it would be appropriate to leave Blanche in the post in an acting capacity through the end of the year as Trump suggested.<\/p>\n

Cornyn and Tillis hold considerable sway on the Judiciary Committee, since Republicans can afford to lose only one GOP senator if all Democrats vote against advancing the nomination. Tillis is retiring at the end of this term, and Cornyn lost a bitter primary reelection battle after Trump endorsed his opponent, Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n

At least one other GOP senator said she had been \u201chopeful\u201d Cornyn\u2019s push for changes would work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it came to the anti-weaponization fund, when it came to the IRS settlement, I said, \u2018I have real concerns about this,\u2019\u201d said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, describing a previous meeting with Blanche.<\/p>\n

Tillis said it would be simple enough for the administration to disavow the weaponization fund, which he described as unpopular with voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives the Democrats gold to mine between now and the election. This is about as politically tone deaf a posture as I have seen in this administration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more Iran war powers resolution blocked in Senate as conflict heats up<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really just comes down to getting this kink in the slinky solved,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Nina Heller, David Jordan and John T. Bennett contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The odds of the Senate confirming Todd Blanche to head the Justice Department before its summer break appear to be dwindling, as the Trump administration struggles to appease GOP holdouts. 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