Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, July 15, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche promised lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday that if confirmed to the top job, the Justice Department would not oppose congressional efforts to permanently ban the controversial anti-gun fund.
Blanche also said he would consider any recent information provided to the government about deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his circle of influential associates. Blanche’s confirmation hearing was attended by many survivors of Epstein’s abuse, some wearing T-shirts depicting the black stripe editorials included in the shared files.
Blanche, who previously worked as President Donald Trump’s defense attorney, appeared before the closely divided Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Republican-led panel is now split 11-10 sudden death On Saturday, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. On Wednesday, a gigantic bouquet of white roses was placed in front of his empty chair.
Lawmakers volleyed partisan accusations about the weaponization of the Justice Department under presidents of both parties. Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt called former Biden administration special counsel Jack Smith a “bag of garbage” for his role in prosecuting Trump on allegations of collusion to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
But it’s the nearly $1.8 billion anti-gun fund plan that has raised tough questions for Blanche from two Republicans on the committee whose votes she needs to advance Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The fund was created in exchange for Trump dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his 2019 tax returns.
In a raised voice, Tillis said he wanted to “stick a fork into the 1776 fund,” referring to the administration’s decision that the fund would earn exactly $1.776 billion, adding that the fund “should never have been paid out.”
Fighting for confirmation
The acting attorney general faces a bumpy road to confirmation in the narrowly divided full Senate, assuming he is promoted by the judiciary, depending on when Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is released from the hospital. Republican sense. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have already opposed some of Trump’s agenda.
Blanche’s confirmation will also depend on a handful of lame-duck or retiring Republican senators whose future Senate careers have been derailed by Trump. They include Cornyn, R-Texas, and Bill Cassidy, R-La. Both recently lost the primary when Trump endorsed his opponents.
Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who transitioned into private law, eventually starting her own firm and representing Trump.
Blanche defended Trump during his New York state grand jury trial on charges that the then-former president falsified business records by paying adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has been found guilty on 34 charges of committing a crime in May 2024.
Blanche went on to serve as a Justice Department deputy in the second Trump administration, a position confirmed in a party-line vote before she was appointed called acting AG after Pam Bondi left in early June.
Trump and the Republican-led Senate elevated the president’s former personal lawyers to senior positions in the US judicial system during his second term.
In addition to Blanche’s appointment, the president nominated former defense attorney Emil Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Senate by a narrow majority of 50 to 49 confirmed Bove to the lifetime position in June 2025. Collins and Murkowski broke with Republicans in opposing Bove’s confirmation.
Counter-Weapons Fund.
Blanche stirred emotions on both sides of the aisle during an hours-long hearing on whether to sign on to an “anti-gun” fund for plaintiffs he previously described as “victims of illegal activity.”
Critics were quick to target the so-called “slush fund” for its likely future payments to pardoned defendants from January 6, 2021, including those who attacked police officers in an attack aimed at preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Blanche maintains that the administration eliminated the fund.
The acting attorney general dodged questions about whether he agreed with Trump’s full pardon of some 1,600 defendants involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“The Constitution gives the president full power to pardon anyone for any reason,” Blanche said.
– You don’t question his decision? asked ranking member Dick Durbin, R-Illinois.
Blanche repeated her answer.
Cornyn, showing an enlarged copy of the IRS settlement, asked Blanche why the Justice Department had not formally terminated the fund.
“Has there been a written agreement between the parties regarding the modification of the settlement fund?” Cornyn asked.
“No, the settlement fund is simply not moving forward. There are no modifications. It just never started. No money has been transferred from the Treasury to any other account,” Blanche replied.
“I take the oath today and I have said many times that this is death,” Blanche later told Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware.
Tillis said: “I think the courts will probably take it up. But why would we waste the court’s authority on this? If I could go to the Senate floor with an agreed-upon piece of text from the administration that just kills the whole thing?”
Blanche said the administration “is not opposed to this path.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, defended the agreement to drop Trump’s lawsuit with the IRS as a “pretty good deal” that was made “without the president receiving a dime.”
Blanche I met with furious Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill on May 21 to sell the settlement fund while several protested against it by holding off on passing a massive immigration funding bill intended to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the rest of his term.
Blanche he said Homeowners said at a June 2 hearing that the administration would not continue working on the fund, but said they did not know “what it means to sign documents revoking the fund.”
Trump’s tax immunity
Trump settlement The IRS’ withdrawal of the lawsuit also indefinitely releases him and his two plaintiff sons, Don Jr. and Erica, as well as the privately held Trump Organization for government investigations and tax enforcement.
Democrats took advantage of this disparity. “All of us in this room, all of us on this side, must comply with U.S. tax laws, and if we fail to do so, we can be held accountable for that, up to and including criminal prosecution,” Durbin said.
“Why did you decide that President Trump, his family and their companies should be exempt from the same responsibility?” the Illinois Democrat asked.
Blanche said the settlement is “typical” of IRS settlements and that it “includes disclosure of any prior audits. It provides no protection to the president, his family or his organizations for any taxes they file.”
“It’s hard to explain to Americans that no one is above the law when you signed a document like this,” Durbin replied.
On Monday, a Florida federal judge in the IRS case slammed Trump’s agreement with his own administration to exploit the president to “manipulate” the courts.
Epstein Files
As expected, senators questioned the Justice Department’s handling of the legally required release of government records relating to Epstein – a process that critics and victims said failed to provide full transparency and protect victims’ identities.
Blanche defended the department’s “Herculean” effort to review millions of documents related to the government’s federal investigation into Epstein
“Mistakes were made, which is why approximately 1% of the editorial staff had to be corrected after the Epstein files were published,” Blanche said.
“Whenever we became aware that any victim’s name had been incorrectly redacted, we immediately deleted the document and corrected it as quickly as possible. This does not excuse the errors, for which I take responsibility, but it does mean that we tried to correct them,” Blanche said.
Durbin asked for a commitment that Blanche will meet in person next month in the presence of 10 of Epstein’s victims at the trial. Blanche said that a human trafficking prosecutor working in his office was ready to meet at any time, but was unable to do so due to ongoing court proceedings.
“We will never stop talking to the victims. We will never do everything in our power to prosecute anyone who committed any crimes against any of these women.[…]”Any victim, if they’re here today, I would encourage them or their attorneys to meet with the FBI,” Blanche said.
“I think you should be in the room,” Durbin said.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said he was “stunned” by Blanche’s refusal to meet with the victims in person.
“But you met Ghislaine Maxwell,” Booker said, referring to Blanche’s July 2025 book. meeting with a convicted sex trafficker and Epstein co-conspirator shortly before her moved to a lower security prison.
Epstein survivors submitted six letters to the committee opposing Blanche’s nomination, and Durbin also submitted for the record a letter from 1,200 former Justice Department employees who represented both sides warning against Blanche’s confirmation.
When asked by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to apologize to the victims in the room, Blanche stated that his “heart breaks for any victim of any sexual crime, whether it involved Mr. Epstein or anyone else.”
Changing the topic to a Republican campaign refrain, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said she appreciated Blanche’s “commitment” to Epstein’s victims and wished Democrats “had the same level of conviction” for “the families of those who have lost loved ones at the hands of illegal aliens.”
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent several letters in support of Blanche’s confirmation, including from law enforcement associations.
