President Donald Trump said he would move to nominate acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday to permanently lead the Justice Department, which would make his former personal attorney the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
“He’s the acting attorney general. Tomorrow. I’m instructing Dan (Scavino) and everyone else who is involved in that very difficult process — which will go, I think, very quickly — that we’re going to make him the permanent attorney general,” Trump said at a White House event, according to a video posted on social media late Wednesday by Scavino.
Blanche, 51, took over the Justice Department after Trump fired Pam Bondi in April amid tensions over the agency’s release of files related to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and frustration that the department was not doing enough against alleged political enemies of the White House.
Blanche would need close Republican support in the Senate, which Republicans control by a slim 53-47 margin.
Blanche has faced backlash from Republican senators, and even some White House aides, over the Justice Department’s scrapped plan to create a $1.8 billion fund for victims of government “weapons” allegations.
He said Tuesday that the DOJ would not be moving forward with the plan, which has sparked fierce bipartisan opposition and threatened to derail a $72 billion funding package for Trump’s immigration crackdown.
But Trump on Wednesday would not say whether the fund had been suspended or suspended, saying, “I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know.”
