WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday said he is pulling his nominee for attorney general until Sen. John Cornyn is out of office, escalating tensions between the two as the Texas Republican continues to insist on changes to a deal protecting Trump and his circle from tax audits.
Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, held up acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee over their shared concerns about a settlement between Trump and the Department of Justice that created a $1.8 billion fund to pay out victims of the agency’s alleged weaponization and gave Trump and his family immunity from being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
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Their demands to tweak those provisions remained unmet by the panel’s scheduled Thursday morning vote on Blanche, forcing its postponement.
In holding up Blanche’s nomination, Cornyn sought to codify the acting agency head’s word that the “anti-weaponization fund” is dead, insisting that it be made legally unenforceable. And he has said the audit shield needs to be as narrow on paper as Blanche testified it would be.
Amid the impasse, Trump weighed in on social media, saying he is putting Blanche’s nomination on ice until 2027 rather than acquiesce to Cornyn and Tillis’ demands. Cornyn is serving out the final months of his term after losing his primary reelection bid to Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Trump endorsed after Cornyn and his allies spent months courting the president’s backing.
“If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill … PASSED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday morning. “Todd Blanche was a voice of reason! It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done.”
Even before Trump blasted Cornyn on social media and suggested sour grapes were at play, the Texas senator dismissed the idea.
“That has nothing to do with it,” he told CNN Thursday morning. “This is about making sure that even if you’re the president of the United States, you don’t get favorable terms from the government in a settlement of a lawsuit that ordinary citizens would not get, like protection from audits by the IRS into the foreseeable future. I think this is about making sure that we maintain the integrity of our justice system and fairness for everybody involved.”
Also on Saturday morning, Tillis blamed Trump’s insistence on keeping the fund alive, despite Blanche’s assurances to the contrary, for the holdup.
“It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal,” he wrote on social media. “Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday.”
The saga began when Trump took the unusual step of suing his own government in January over the leak of his tax records in 2019 and 2020. The DOJ, representing the IRS and the Department of Treasury, settled the lawsuit in May by creating a $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of DOJ weaponization to make claims. In an order signed by Blanche, the department also shielded Trump, his family and his business associates from tax audits.
Amidst an outcry of criticism, including from Republicans, that taxpayer money could go to Jan. 6 rioters, the DOJ backed off of the fund, declaring it a moot issue. Cornyn has maintained that he needs to see written modifications to the settlement ensuring the fund cannot be revived in any form, including through a breach of contract lawsuit from a plaintiff, such as Trump, to attempt to compel payouts. And he has sought a written guarantee that the audit shield does not provide immunity from other agency audits beyond the IRS, and that it covers only people who were parties to the lawsuit. He has also sought assurances that the shield does not apply to future tax returns or legal cases.
Cornyn said he provided the DOJ with a “redline strikeout” that would change the settlement to meet his standards, adding that the issue could be resolved swiftly if the department would agree to such language.
“I thought we were pretty close to landing the plane last night, but this morning there’s been some more complications,” he told CNN. “I think if this were just between me and Todd Blanche, we would have worked this out. But apparently he’s getting some pushback from higher ups at the White House. I don’t know who, but this doesn’t need to be this hard.”
In his posts this week, Trump suggested that he could withdraw Blanche’s nomination, keep him on in an acting capacity through the end of the year, and then resubmit his nomination to the next Congress, when both Cornyn and Tillis, who is retiring, are gone. Blanche, who is already Senate-confirmed as deputy attorney general, can presumably continue serving in an acting capacity through the rest of Trump’s term, though there are differing legal interpretations of laws governing acting appointees and nominees.
“I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” Trump wrote, criticizing the pair for voting to confirm former attorney general Merrick Garland’s nomination when Democrat Joe Biden was president.
But that approach has its risks. Cornyn, Tillis or both could be replaced by Democrats, given the competitive Senate races in both Texas and North Carolina. Republicans currently have a 53-47 advantage in the upper chamber, but Democrats, who are polling well in a number of Republican-held Senate seats, believe they can flip the upper chamber. Blanche would likely have no shot at confirmation if Democrats gain a majority.
Trump’s frustrations with the two senators also demonstrate the hazards of alienating members of his own party. Neither will face voters this fall, giving them greater political cover to be free agents when they so choose.
Cornyn also said that while he and Tillis are the public face of the standoff, more senators are behind him.
“POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” he wrote on X in response to Trump’s post.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a retiring member himself, said he suspects Trump’s social media missive is an attempt to ramp up the pressure on Cornyn and Tillis.
But Durbin, who has served in the Senate for over 20 years with Cornyn, cautioned in a CNN interview Wednesday night that it would be a mistake for the White House to take the Texan’s vote for granted.
And Durbin agreed in a Thursday interview that Cornyn and Tillis’ position is more broadly shared among their colleagues.
“I have no doubt that many Republican senators agree with Cornyn and with Tillis, and they’ve been afraid to say the first word about it,” Durbin said. “These two senators, like me, are lame ducks. They have more courage to deal with these issues than their colleagues.”