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President Trump has officially nominated his former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to be attorney general. Blanche had been the No. 2 official at the Justice Department until Trump pushed out his first attorney general, Pam Bondi, more than two months ago. Trump nominated Blanche for the top job this week, but his path to confirmation in the Senate may be bumpy. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas reports.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: As Todd Blanche tells it, his relationship with Donald Trump began with a surprise phone call during a ski trip in Colorado in early 2023.
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TODD BLANCHE: We had finished skiing for the day. We're getting ready to watch the Super Bowl with my daughter and her friends, and we were at a little condo right at the base of the mountain. Then I got a West Palm Beach number.
LUCAS: Blanche, retelling the story in 2024 on Defense Attorney David Markus' podcast, says he picked up, and Trump was on the other end of the line.
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BLANCHE: We had a good conversation. I went with my wife to have dinner with him and his wife a few weeks later. And we clicked.
LUCAS: They clicked so much so that Trump hired Blanche to be his personal attorney. Blanche would make his name on the national stage defending Trump from criminal charges over hush money payments, mishandling classified documents and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. After Trump returned to the White House last year, he made Blanche the No. 2 official at the Justice Department. Trump bumped Blanche into the top job on an acting basis after Trump pushed out his first attorney general, Pam Bondi, in April. Days later, Blanche was asked by reporters whether he wanted the attorney general job permanently.
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BLANCHE: I love working for President Trump. It's the greatest honor of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, thank you very much. I love you, sir.
LUCAS: That was early April. Blanche quickly got to work showing what kind of attorney general he could be. Under his leadership, the Justice Department has aggressively pursued Trump's promised campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies. It has charged former FBI Director James Comey with making threats against the president in a photo of seashells Comey posted online. It also has charged the Southern Poverty Law Center over payments it made to confidential informants to infiltrate extremist groups. And the department has opened an investigation that centers around the lawsuits the writer E. Jean Carroll brought and won against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation. Trump has made clear he likes what Blanche has been doing. Here he is speaking at a Rose Garden dinner in May.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have a man who's doing a great job, I'll tell you. I knew it because he kept me out of jail for years - acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He kept me out of jail.
LUCAS: The president's remarks highlight the way he views his relationship with Blanche and the Justice Department more broadly in his second term. The nature of that relationship was laid bare last month, when the department announced the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion pot of taxpayer money, dubbed the antiweaponization fund, as part of a settlement agreement with Trump. In return, the president dropped his lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. The antiweaponization fund caused outrage on Capitol Hill. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen summed up the Democratic view this way in a hearing with Blanche.
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CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: You created a $1.8 billion slush fund to dole out taxpayer dollars to the president's supporters, including those who attacked this Capitol on January 6. That is pure theft of public funds.
LUCAS: The fund also is a problem for some Republicans over the possibility that January 6 Capitol rioters could receive payments from it. Here's North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis.
THOM TILLIS: And I think it's irresponsible. It sends the signal, hey, go breach the Capitol, destroy the building, assault police officers. You may even get compensated for someday (ph). That's absurd.
LUCAS: In the face of growing political pushback, Blanche told lawmakers this month the department was abandoning the fund, but he said the part of the settlement that shields Trump, his family and businesses from IRS audits into past tax returns will remain in effect. On Monday, the White House formally submitted Blanche's nomination to the Senate. Asked by Fox News over the weekend what his priorities would be as attorney general, Blanche said this.
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BLANCHE: Executing on the president's priorities that he has talked about since he was running for president, and that's making this country safe again.
LUCAS: He added that he looks forward to working with the Senate toward his confirmation. But Blanche has a narrow path to approval in the Senate, given that Democrats and even some Republicans have concerns about his track record at the Justice Department.
Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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