Todd Blanche, the criminal-defense lawyer who spent years representing Donald Trump personally, is now formally in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Senate confirmed him as attorney general by a 50–49 vote in the early hours of Saturday, August 8, 2026, and he was sworn in at the White House two days later, on Monday, August 10, with the oath administered by Emil Bove, a former Trump attorney who now sits on a federal appeals court.
The confirmation ended a weekslong fight that exposed unusual Republican resistance to a president's choice to lead the Justice Department — and it installed a Trump loyalist at the head of an agency of more than 100,000 employees whose stated mission is to enforce federal law independently of the White House. As of late September, Blanche is no longer a nominee awaiting a vote. He is the attorney general, with authority over the department's senior leadership, its federal prosecutors, the FBI, and the administration's major law-enforcement and litigation priorities.
A confirmation decided by a single vote
The final tally was as narrow as it could be without a tie. Two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joined every Democratic senator in voting against Blanche, according to multiple reports on the confirmation. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, provided the decisive Republican support. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was absent.
That arithmetic matters beyond the headline number. It means Blanche's confirmation depended on a single senator's decision to break with two colleagues from his own party who had publicly registered doubts. Collins and Murkowski, according to reporting on their votes, cited concerns about what they regarded as the increasing politicization of the Justice Department — a criticism aimed less at Blanche's credentials than at the environment in which he would serve and the relationship he would carry into the job.
The vote also demonstrated that Blanche's nomination was never assured even with Republicans in control of the chamber. What would ordinarily be a party-line approval on a president's cabinet pick became, in this case, a negotiation: wary Republicans sought assurances, and the outcome remained unclear until the roll was called. Cassidy's vote prevented the nomination from failing.
From Trump's defense lawyer to the nation's top law-enforcement officer
Blanche's path to the job ran through Trump's own legal troubles. He served as Trump's personal criminal-defense lawyer before moving into the government, and he became acting attorney general in April 2026 — placing him in operational control of the Justice Department months before the Senate voted on whether to keep him there permanently.
That acting period is central to how the confirmation fight unfolded. For roughly four months, Blanche ran the department without Senate confirmation, and he appeared at his confirmation hearing in July while still serving in an acting capacity. According to reporting on that hearing, the questioning focused on three things: his relationship with Trump, the department's independence from the White House, and how he would use the powers of the office. Republicans' reservations were serious enough that the nomination turned into a prolonged political fight rather than a routine approval.
The swearing-in itself carried its own symbolism. Bove — who administered the oath — is a former Trump attorney who has since become a federal appeals-court judge, a trajectory that mirrors Blanche's own movement between the president's personal legal defense and the institutions of federal law enforcement. Trump nominated Blanche, and his administration supported the nomination throughout the confirmation process.
The independence question at the center of the fight
The core objection raised against Blanche was not about competence. It was about whether a lawyer who had personally defended the president could credibly oversee investigations and prosecutions that might touch the president's interests — and whether he would be willing, or able, to say no.
NBC News characterized the debate as involving concerns about Blanche's ability to run the department independently of the president's impulses. That framing captures the essential tension: the attorney general is a member of the president's cabinet, nominated by him and serving at his pleasure, yet is also expected to insulate criminal enforcement decisions from political direction. The Justice Department's own norms — not just its statutes — have historically been understood to require a degree of separation between the Oval Office and individual cases.
Critics say the department has become more politically responsive to the White House, and Blanche's confirmation, in that view, cemented the arrangement rather than checked it. Supporters of the president, by contrast, have argued that a president is entitled to an attorney general who shares his priorities and that the alarm expressed by opponents reflects a broader political conflict rather than a specific concern about Blanche's conduct.
Both positions were on display in the confirmation vote itself. Collins and Murkowski broke with their party over the politicization question. Cassidy, whose vote decided the outcome, weighed the competing pressures — supporting a president-backed nominee versus addressing concerns about the department's credibility, independence, and use of federal law-enforcement powers — and came down in favor. The Democratic caucus voted unanimously against confirmation, according to multiple reports.
The department Blanche now leads
The scope of the job is difficult to overstate. The Justice Department has more than 100,000 employees and encompasses not only the attorney general's immediate staff and the U.S. attorneys who handle federal prosecutions, but also the FBI and the department's other investigatory and litigation arms. Its priorities reach from street-level federal crime to antitrust enforcement, civil rights litigation, immigration enforcement, and national-security matters.
An attorney general sets tone as much as policy. Through memoranda, hiring decisions, the selection of senior leadership, and the willingness — or reluctance — to approve sensitive investigations, the person in the chair shapes which cases get brought and which do not, long before any courtroom argument is made. That is why the independence debate attached so firmly to Blanche: the specific decisions that would test his tenure are largely ahead of him, not behind him.
It is also why the confirmation period carried unusual weight. During his months as acting attorney general, Blanche already held the authority of the office. What changed on August 10 was the formality of Senate confirmation — and with it, the political accountability that comes from a recorded vote.
A narrow mandate in a polarized chamber
Nothing about a 50–49 confirmation produces a broad mandate, and the circumstances of Blanche's approval are likely to shape how he is received on Capitol Hill.
For one thing, the margin gives Democratic senators a straightforward argument that the attorney general lacks majority support in the country's collective judgment, even as he holds the office legitimately. For another, it leaves Blanche dependent on a small number of Republican senators who have already shown they are willing to vote against him. Collins and Murkowski have demonstrated that their support is not automatic; Cassidy has demonstrated that his is available, at least once.
McConnell's absence from the vote is a reminder of how thin the margin was in practice. Had the Kentucky Republican been present and opposed, the arithmetic would have been different. Had one more Republican defected, the nomination would have failed. These are not hypotheticals of much use now, but they explain why the confirmation consumed weeks rather than days.
The narrowness also matters institutionally. Attorneys general typically appear before Congress to defend budgets, testify on oversight matters, and answer questions about enforcement priorities. An attorney general confirmed by a single vote can expect those appearances to be especially adversarial, and can expect subpoenas, document requests, and demands for testimony to follow any decision that critics regard as politically motivated.
What is known, and what is not yet clear
A considerable amount remains unresolved, and it is worth distinguishing the confirmed facts of Blanche's position from the contested expectations surrounding it.
What is confirmed: Blanche was nominated by Trump; he served as acting attorney general beginning in April 2026; he was confirmed on August 8, 2026, by a vote of 50–49; he was sworn in at the White House on August 10 by Bove; and he now heads the Department of Justice. Collins, Murkowski, and every Democratic senator voted against him; Cassidy's vote was decisive; McConnell was absent.
What is contested: whether the department under Blanche will operate independently of the White House, and whether the concerns voiced by the two Republican senators who opposed him will be borne out in enforcement decisions. Those questions cannot be resolved by a vote tally. They will be answered by how the department handles the cases that reach it — and by how Congress and the courts respond.
The research available does not detail specific enforcement actions or policy directives issued since the swearing-in, and it would be speculative to attribute particular decisions to the new attorney general without such reporting.
The broader context
Blanche's confirmation is the culmination of a longer arc in which the Justice Department has been at the center of American political conflict. The department investigated Trump; Trump campaigned against what he characterized as its weaponization; and he ultimately installed as attorney general a man who had personally defended him in criminal proceedings. Each step of that sequence is contested by partisans on both sides, but the sequence itself is the context in which Blanche's tenure will be judged.
It is also a case study in how narrow majorities translate into governing authority. A single senator's vote produced a confirmed attorney general rather than a failed nomination, and the difference between those two outcomes — for the department's leadership, for pending and future investigations, and for the Republican senators who will face voters again — is substantial.
What happens next
Blanche now faces the practical work of running the department, and the political work of defending it.
He will be expected to appear before congressional committees, where the questions that dominated his July confirmation hearing — his relationship with Trump and the department's independence — are likely to recur. Oversight from the Democratic minority, and from the Republican senators who opposed him, is likely to focus on whether particular enforcement decisions were made on the merits or at the direction of the White House.
The courts will provide a second arena. Justice Department positions in litigation carry the weight of the federal government, and judges have shown a willingness in recent years to scrutinize whether executive-branch actions rest on legitimate legal reasoning or on political preference. An attorney general whose confirmation was decided by one vote enters that arena with less institutional cushioning than most of his predecessors.
And there is the longer question of credibility. Attorneys general are judged, in the end, by whether the public and the bar believe that federal law enforcement is being applied evenhandedly. Blanche's stated task — as framed by the debate over his nomination — is to demonstrate that a former personal lawyer to the president can run the Justice Department independently of him. The Senate has given him the office. The evidence of whether he can hold that line will accumulate case by case, over the months and years ahead.