The three lame-duck Republican senators who narrowly saved Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general ended up backing him because they believed he was the only person who had earned enough trust, and enjoyed enough access, to rein in President Trump.
One issue with that calculation: Mr. Blanche is a champion of unbridled presidential power.
Time and again during his turbulent nomination process, Mr. Blanche made it unmistakably clear that he believes Mr. Trump possesses a nearly limitless right to directly control the actions of the Justice Department under Article II of the Constitution. It is an argument that formed the foundation of his strategy as the president’s criminal defense lawyer and is the lodestar of his government service.
Mr. Blanche’s confirmation in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday was largely symbolic: as acting attorney general, he could have served indefinitely. But it represented a powerful endorsement by Congress of the philosophy that has guided him under a meddling, demanding boss — that he has a constitutional obligation to execute every lawful White House order, even if it shatters longstanding policy and rule-of-law norms, or contradicts what he thinks is right.
He articulated that view from the moment he took over as acting attorney general in April, telling reporters that Mr. Trump had “the right” and “duty” to order up investigations of people he targets. During his confirmation, both in public and in private conversations, Mr. Blanche sidestepped questions over whether actions Mr. Trump ordered were right, saying only that Mr. Trump had the right to do them.
Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, said this marked a major break from past administrations. “Just because a president can control the Justice Department does not mean he should,” she said. “Since Watergate, America has prized a Justice Department that is independent from partisan politics.”
While Mr. Trump and allies like Mr. Blanche have repeatedly accused the Biden White House of ordering up prosecutorial hit jobs against Republicans, they have provided little evidence to support the kind of direct interventions that have become commonplace in Mr. Trump’s second term.
In a recent interview, former President Barack Obama said he followed a broad rule of remaining at a distance from the Justice Department to protect its independence, even though he was not legally required to do so.
“The White House shouldn’t be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants to prosecute,” he said. “The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer. It’s not the president’s consiglieri.”
Mr. Trump has a different view. Case in point: Late Monday, he browbeat Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, for withdrawing the indictment of a man accused of defacing the Reflecting Pool. While the melodramatic showdown was big news, the fact that the president was issuing marching orders to a federal prosecutor was so typical under this administration it was not noted in most of the coverage.
During his confirmation hearing, Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, asked Mr. Blanche whether the department he was running is “independent from the White House?”
Mr. Blanche’s reply: “Article II of the Constitution gives the power of the executive to President Trump.”
When Mr. Coons followed up by asking if he would resign if Mr. Trump directed him do something illegal or unethical, Mr. Blanche said: “That will never happen. But yes, if it were to happen, I’m not going to violate my oath to the Constitution.”
Mr. Blanche shares Mr. Trump’s view that the landmark 2024 Supreme Court ruling that granted Mr. Trump sweeping immunity from prosecution represents a broader endorsement of expanded presidential authority.
“Todd Blanche has lived firsthand the expansion of executive power by the Supreme Court and Trump,” said John P. Fishwick Jr., who served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia under Mr. Obama. “Look for D.O.J. to aggressively protect this muscular executive power.”
While many Republicans raised questions about Mr. Blanche’s actions and even his independence during his confirmation, few were willing to withhold, or even leverage, their votes to challenge the boss-employee dynamic Mr. Trump has imposed on the department.
“Ultimately, decisions are made by the president,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, who announced in a floor speech Friday that he would deliver the decisive vote for Mr. Blanche’s confirmation.
The adviser Mr. Cassidy consulted before making up his mind was notable. During his speech, he quoted extensively from conversations with William P. Barr, Mr. Trump’s attorney general in his first term who articulated an expansive view of presidential power in a 2018 memo. Mr. Barr quit two years later when pressured by Mr. Trump to help undermine confidence in the 2020 election.
Mr. Barr counseled Mr. Cassidy to support Mr. Blanche in the belief that he could quietly talk the president out of bad ideas, even though Mr. Barr quit rather than comply with Mr. Trump’s demands to investigate an election Mr. Barr found had been fairly conducted.
Mr. Blanche’s experience as Mr. Trump’s private lawyer was not a reason to oppose him, Mr. Barr told Mr. Cassidy — but an asset. It gave Mr. Blanche the capacity to “have tough conversations” and confront Mr. Trump with “difficult truths” that could change his mind, Mr. Barr said to him.
Not every Republican bought into this job description of an attorney general.
Two Republican women, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska, said they would vote no on Mr. Blanche precisely because he had been unwilling to speak truth to Mr. Trump’s power or have enough tough conversations with him.
Ms. Collins, the first Republican to oppose Mr. Blanche, said he had taken several actions “that have further eroded the department’s independence,” including his sign-off of tax protections for the president and his family and the attempted indictments of Democratic lawmakers who criticized Mr. Trump.
Early Friday, Ms. Murkowski, a consistent and plain-spoken Republican critic of Mr. Trump, described her no vote as a moment of major historic consequence — an opportunity to both demonstrate the chamber’s dissatisfaction with Mr. Blanche’s obeisance and reclaim the Senate’s authority to influence the department’s direction.
“The country needs an attorney general who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Ms. Murkowski said on Friday. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”
Shortly after, Mr. Cassidy took to the floor to offer Mr. Blanche his support.
The floor fight over Mr. Blanche was preceded by a clash in the Senate Judiciary Committee that followed a similar trajectory.
Two lame-duck senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, briefly withheld their support on the Senate Judiciary Committee over Mr. Blanche’s role in a deal to resolve Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S. The ensuing agreement created a $1.8 billion fund to compensate purported victims of Biden-era abuses at the department and granted Mr. Trump sweeping immunity from tax investigations.
Both made it clear, from the start, that they liked Mr. Blanche and did not consider his reluctance to challenge Mr. Trump to be disqualifying.
They simply wanted him to put in writing his verbal commitment to kill the fund and to include modest limits on the tax provision. Mr. Blanche was amenable, but the White House resisted, and Mr. Trump threatened to temporarily withdraw Mr. Blanche’s nomination until the two lawmakers were out of office.
The president eventually relented, clearing the way for a vote on the floor. But the episode underscored, in the view of critics, the lopsided power dynamic inherent in the partnership between Mr. Trump and Mr. Blanche.
Mr. Cornyn expressed broader concerns about Mr. Blanche’s independence during a confirmation hearing last month, echoing Ms. Murkowksi’s statements.
But he did not withhold his vote to make the larger point as she did and confined his final senatorial stand to a narrower patch of ground — obtaining written assurances over the agreement that emerged from the I.R.S. suit.
After the Senate committee advanced Mr. Blanche’s nomination, Mr. Cornyn conceded that Mr. Trump, resentful of being forced to make even a modest accommodation, might backtrack on the agreement after he retired.
“There’s nothing we could do to rein in the president when he said he likes the fund and wishes it still exists, but the fact of the matter is it’s dead, and that’s all we could do under the circumstances,” he told reporters.
