Washington — Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana announced Friday that he will support Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, clearing the way for him to lead the Justice Department in a permanent capacity.

“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said in remarks on the Senate floor announcing his support. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”

With Cassidy’s backing, Blanche is expected to clinch his confirmation for attorney general, though by a narrow margin. While Republicans control the Senate, Blanche could only afford to lose the votes of two GOP senators and still win approval for the role of the nation’s top law enforcement official given Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence. 

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska had already announced their plans to oppose Blanche’s nomination, making Cassidy the decisive vote. All Democrats are expected to vote against Blanche for attorney general.

The Senate is planning to hold votes on a number of GOP priorities on Friday before leaving Washington for a five-week recess. It’s unclear whether the chamber will vote on Blanche’s confirmation as part of that sprint, since speeding up the process would require consent from Democrats.

In his Senate floor speech, Cassidy said the choice between Blanche and a different acting attorney general “puts at risk the progress made fighting violent crime, human and drug trafficking, and fraud.”

“This does not serve the American people well,” he said. “This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances. All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche.”

Blanche’s nomination

Mr. Trump announced Blanche as his nominee for attorney general in June to replace Pam Bondi, whom he ousted in April. Blanche, who was the president’s former personal defense lawyer, has been serving as acting attorney general since Bondi’s firing.

But his path to confirmation has been tenuous, as key Republican senators took issue with Blanche’s role in establishing the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund designed to provide payouts to people who alleged they had been unfairly targeted by the federal government.

Senators raised concerns that defendants convicted of assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol could be given taxpayer-backed payments. Cassidy was among the seven Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection during his second impeachment trial in February 2021. The president, whose first term had already ended, was acquitted by the upper chamber.

The “anti-weaponization” fund was part of a settlement agreement the president reached with the IRS in May to resolve a $10 billion civil lawsuit he filed over the leak of his tax returns by a former government contractor.

In addition to the $1.8 billion program, the Justice Department also agreed to grant Mr. Trump, members of his family and affiliated entities sweeping immunity from tax audits and investigations.

Cassidy said Blanche demonstrated “poor judgment” by approving the “anti-weaponization” fund and granting the president immunity from tax probes. The Louisiana senator said that he is also “concerned” with prosecutions against Mr. Trump’s perceived political enemies, though he added that “presidents of both parties have been guilty of this.”

“It must stop. It should stop now,” he said. “A never-ending cycle of prosecuting political enemies undermines the rule of law, degrades the public’s trust in our institutions, and makes our politics more extreme when we need to unite to solve the big problems of our time.”

Still, he said Blanche is “criticized for things over which he has no control,” such as the president’s pardons for defendants convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack.

Pushback to the “anti-weaponization” fund and the immunity deal threatened to derail Blanche’s nomination, though he tried to assuage senators’ concerns during his confirmation hearing.

While the acting attorney general told senators that the fund was “dead,” the Justice Department negotiated for weeks with two key Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, before securing their backing for Blanche earlier this week.

To earn their support, Blanche issued a new order rescinding a May directive that established the “anti-weaponization” fund and clarified the scope of the tax immunity deal for Mr. Trump.

Following the agreement, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to advance Blanche’s nomination to the Senate floor.

But beyond the “anti-weaponization” fund and immunity deal for Mr. Trump, Blanche also came under scrutiny from senators for the Justice Department’s handling of the release of more than 3 million pages of documents from its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his meeting last year with Ghislaine Maxwell, a former girlfriend of Epstein’s who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

Blanche acknowledged during his confirmation hearing that “mistakes were made” with some of the Epstein documents, which contained the unredacted names and personal information of victims of his sex-trafficking operation. He also met with survivors of Epstein’s crimes at the Justice Department last month after Tillis said he would withhold support until Blanche did so.

But some of the survivors criticized Blanche for his conduct during the meeting, with one describing it as a “check-the-box exercise” designed to secure votes for his confirmation. They urged senators to reject his nomination.