Senate confirms Todd Blanche as attorney general in 50-49 pre-dawn vote

The US Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general in the early hours of Saturday morning, ending a weekslong political fight on Capitol Hill. The vote was 50 to 49, largely along party lines, according to reports. Blanche, who had led the Justice Department in an acting capacity since April, now takes permanent charge of it as the 88th United States attorney general. Blanche arrived at the role by an unusual path. He previously worked as Donald Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer, according to multiple reports, before becoming the 40th US deputy attorney general in January 2025. That history sat at the center of the confirmation battle: lawmakers from both parties questioned whether he could run the Justice Department independently of the president he once represented in court. The narrow margin made the vote a test of Trump's grip on Senate Republicans, reports suggest. Two Republican senators broke ranks to oppose Blanche, and the aftermath was bitter. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of enabling corruption under Trump, while the president attacked Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, calling her a traitor for voting against the nomination.

A 50-49 vote in the early hours of Saturday

The Senate voted in the early hours of Saturday morning to confirm Todd Blanche as the 88th United States attorney general, bringing a weekslong political fight on Capitol Hill to an end. According to reports, the final tally was 50 in favor and 49 against, a margin that underscored how narrowly Blanche secured permanent leadership of the Department of Justice.

The vote came largely along party lines, but not entirely. According to reporting on the roll call, two Republican senators broke ranks to oppose the nomination, a notable defection given the pressure on the party to deliver for President Trump. Among them was Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who did not vote in favor of confirmation. Reports suggest that Republican Senator Bill Cassidy ultimately cast the deciding vote after a lengthy stand-off, though the precise sequence of the pre-dawn session has not been fully detailed publicly.

The confirmation makes permanent a role Blanche had already been performing. He had served as acting attorney general from April to August 2026, leading the Justice Department while his nomination remained stalled in the Senate. Before that, he had been the 40th US deputy attorney general, a position he took up in January 2025.

The timing of the vote, held in the early hours of a Saturday, reflected the contentious path to confirmation. Lawmakers in both parties had raised concerns about whether Blanche, a former personal criminal defense lawyer for Trump, could run the Justice Department independently of the president.

From Trump's defense table to the Justice Department's top job

Todd Blanche's rise through the Justice Department has been swift. He arrived in January 2025 as the 40th U.S. deputy attorney general, the department's second-ranking official. By April 2026 he had moved up to lead the department on an acting basis, and he held that interim role for roughly four months while his nomination stalled in the Senate. In August 2026, following his confirmation, he became the 88th United States attorney general, taking permanent charge of an institution he had already been running in a caretaker capacity.

Before entering government, Blanche was known for a very different kind of legal work. According to reports, he previously served as Donald Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer, representing the then-former president in his legal battles. That history followed him into the confirmation process and defined it. Lawmakers from both parties raised concerns about whether a man who had once been paid to defend Trump could lead the Justice Department independently of him. The question was not abstract. The attorney general oversees federal prosecutions, and senators on both sides of the aisle wrestled with whether Blanche would align the department with the president's interests.

Those doubts turned what might have been a routine elevation into a weekslong, largely party-line fight on Capitol Hill. Blanche spent the intervening months running the department as its acting head, performing the job while the Senate debated whether he should keep it.

1. January 2025

   Todd Blanche began serving as the 40th U.S. deputy attorney general.

2. April 2026

   Blanche began serving as acting attorney general.

3. April to August 2026

   Blanche led the Justice Department in an acting capacity while his nomination faced a weekslong, largely party-line confirmation fight over his independence from President Trump.

4. Early Saturday morning (date not given)

   The Senate confirmed Blanche as attorney general by a 50-49 vote, with two Republicans opposed and Senator Bill Cassidy casting the deciding vote.

5. August 2026

   Blanche became the 88th United States attorney general, taking permanent leadership of the Department of Justice.

6. After the vote

   President Trump attacked Senator Lisa Murkowski as a traitor for voting against Blanche, while Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of enabling corruption.

Why the nomination became a weekslong test of Trump's hold on the Senate

The nomination did not fail for lack of Republican numbers. It stalled because lawmakers in both parties questioned whether Blanche could run the Justice Department independently of the president who had once been his client. According to reporting on the confirmation fight, that concern was the central obstacle: senators wanted to know whether Blanche would lead the department on its own terms or align it with President Trump's interests.

The battle was widely seen as a test of Trump's grip on Senate Republicans. That framing comes from the coverage of the stand-off, not from any formal declaration on Capitol Hill, but it captured the stakes. A president's nominee for attorney general rarely faces open resistance from his own party. That some Republicans broke ranks, and that the fight dragged on for weeks, suggested Trump's influence over his caucus had limits, or at least that this nomination probed them.

What triggered the stand-off is not clear from the available reporting. Nor is it known whether Blanche made commitments to individual senators to secure the votes he needed. What is documented is the shape of the fight: contentious, largely along party lines, and long enough that Blanche spent months leading the department in an acting capacity while the Senate argued over whether he should hold the job permanently.

The vote, by the numbers

The margin could hardly have been tighter. The Senate confirmed Blanche by 50 votes to 49, a single-vote margin in a chamber of 100, with the ballot cast in the early hours of a Saturday morning. According to reporting on the vote, two Republican senators broke with their party to oppose the nomination, leaving the confirmation resting on a largely party-line split. Only one of those defectors has been publicly identified: Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who did not vote in favour. The second Republican opponent is not named in the available reporting. Reports indicate that Republican Senator Bill Cassidy cast the deciding vote after a lengthy stand-off.

The confirmation capped a tenure at the Justice Department that began well before the Senate acted. Blanche joined the department in January 2025 as the 40th US deputy attorney general. In April 2026 he moved up to serve as acting attorney general, leading the department in that capacity through the weekslong confirmation fight. With the Senate's approval, he became the 88th United States attorney general in August 2026, roughly 19 months after first arriving at the department.

Schumer cries corruption; Trump brands Murkowski a traitor

The reaction to the confirmation split sharply along the same lines as the vote itself.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of enabling corruption under President Trump, framing the confirmation as a failure by the majority to act as a check on the White House. According to reporting on the vote, Schumer directed his criticism at Republicans who had backed Blanche despite weeks of questions about whether he could run the Justice Department independently of the president he once represented as a personal criminal defense lawyer.

Trump, for his part, aimed his fire at his own side. According to reports, the president attacked Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska after she declined to support Blanche, branding her a traitor for her vote against the nominee. Murkowski was one of two Republican senators reported to have broken ranks, a defection that left the outcome resting on a single vote until the final tally.

The exchange underscored how the confirmation fight had become about more than one nomination. For Democrats, it was evidence that the Senate had surrendered oversight of the Justice Department. For the president, it was a loyalty test, and one he appeared intent on enforcing publicly against those who failed it.

How Blanche himself views the criticism is not known. He has not publicly responded to Schumer's accusation or to the broader concerns about his independence from Trump, and no statement from him addressing either has been reported.

What Blanche inherits at the Justice Department

Todd Blanche takes permanent charge of the Department of Justice after leading it in an acting capacity from April to August 2026. The months in the acting role gave him a running start, but the confirmation fight that preceded Saturday's vote leaves him with a distinct burden: questions about his independence from President Trump that were never resolved during the process.

Those questions came from both sides of the aisle. Lawmakers in both parties raised concerns about whether Blanche could lead the Justice Department independently of the president, and the confirmation battle centered on whether he would align the department with Trump's interests. That the fight was contentious enough to draw defections from within the Republican ranks — two GOP senators voted against him, according to reports — underscores how far those concerns reached.

Blanche's history is central to the doubt that follows him. Before entering government, he served as Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer. He then became the 40th U.S. deputy attorney general in January 2025, before moving into the acting attorney general role in April 2026. That trajectory — from the president's defense table to the top of federal law enforcement in under two years — was the heart of the case his opponents made.

Now, as the 88th United States attorney general, Blanche heads an institution whose credibility rests heavily on the perception of independence from the White House. The weekslong stand-off over his nomination, and the narrow margin that finally confirmed him, mean he assumes the permanent job with that perception still in dispute. How he manages the department under that scrutiny is the question his confirmation leaves open.

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