Senators Raise Concerns Over Todd Blanche’s Attorney General Nomination Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s path to becoming President Trump’s permanent pick has become a test case for how both parties now weaponize January 6 and “anti-weaponization” politics — and for how little trust either side has in the Justice Department’s independence.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, chair of the Judiciary Committee, is framing Blanche’s confirmation as contingent on a hard line against Capitol rioters. He has “threatened to torpedo the nomination … unless he explicitly condemns the January 6 protesters,” warning that any nominee who suggests those who “beat up police officers … were righteous people” has “no prayer” of getting his vote. In a separate interview, Tillis urged focus on Blanche’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” or “1776” fund, arguing that unless it is definitively killed, Blanche “is not going to have a very good time in the Judiciary Committee.”

Conservative reporting sympathetic to Trump casts Tillis as a “RINO” saboteur, accusing him of trying to “sink Todd Blanche[’s] AG nomination” by demanding loyalty to an establishment narrative about Jan. 6. From this vantage point, the real threat is not Blanche but Republicans willing to give Democrats ammunition in high-profile hearings.

Mainstream conservative outlets, however, emphasize that multiple GOP senators — Tillis, John Cornyn, and John Kennedy — are publicly undecided and scrutinizing “everything from his Jan. 6 comments to his allegiance to President Donald Trump.” Senate GOP leaders note that most members are usually “deferential to who the president wants in some of these key positions,” but concede that “nothing’s a safe or sure bet these days.”

Democrats are moving in the opposite direction but for overlapping reasons. Sen. John Fetterman says bluntly, “I would not vote for him,” calling the abandoned “anti-weaponization” fund a “slush fund” and “a bizarre thing” that distracts from issues like the Iran war. Other Democrats label Blanche a Trump “crony” and “loyalist,” questioning his fidelity to the Constitution.

Blanche, insisting he is “honored and humbled” and has “a good relationship with the Senate on both sides,” now finds himself squeezed between a Trump base wary of GOP defectors, Republicans demanding distance from Jan. 6, and Democrats alarmed by any Trump-aligned attorney general.