Trump nominates Todd Blanche for attorney general amid controversy over DOJ fund

President Donald Trump on Monday nominated Todd Blanche as attorney general, a position that he has held in an acting capacity for more than two months.

Trump had said he would ask the Senate to confirm Blanche as attorney general to succeed Pam Bondi, whom the president fired on April 2.

The nomination comes weeks after Blanche had the Justice Department give Trump, his family members, and the Trump Organization immunity from prosecution or enforcement actions by the Internal Revenue Service in connection with tax returns filed before a controversial settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.

Blanche, who is currently the deputy attorney general, previously served as a criminal defense lawyer for Trump when the president was out of office from January 2021 through January 2025.

Since being named in the acting capacity, Blanche has faced strong criticism from senators, including some Republicans, whose support he will need to win confirmation.

Those lawmakers and good-government advocacy groups, have blasted Blanche for authorizing the Justice Department’s creation of a so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund as part of the settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS.

The $1.8 billion fund was designed to compensate purported victims of prosecutorial overreach by the Justice Department during the Biden administration.

Critics of the fund said it could pay people who were convicted of assaulting police officers and other crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021, invasion of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, who were protesting the election of former President Joe Biden.

Blanche, on June 2, told a House subcommittee that the Justice Department had permanently abandoned plans for the fund in the face of that criticism, and a federal judge’s injunction temporarily barring the fund from operating.

But he refused to put that promise in writing, raising concerns that the Justice Department would seek to revive the fund in the future. And Trump, the following day, said he was unclear about the fund’s fate.

Lawsuits challenging the legality of the fund remain pending.

Blanche, during the same hearing, told the subcommittee that the agreement to protect Trump from prosecution related to tax returns filed before the settlement would remain in effect.

“You know, look, and I just want to say this: the Save America PAC [political action committee controlled by Trump] paid you nearly $10 million between March of 2024 and December of 2024 to serve as President Trump’s personal defense attorney,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told Blanche at the hearing.

“My God, don’t you not find there’s any conflict of interest in what you are doing here as the acting attorney general of the United States?” DeLauro asked.

He replied: “What are you saying is a conflict?”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Blanche added.

Trump is the only president who has faced criminal charges. Blanche served as his defense lawyer in three of the cases.

In two of the cases, Trump was indicted in separate federal courts over his bid to reverse his loss to Biden in the 2020 election, and for retaining classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House. Both cases were dropped by the Justice Department after Trump was elected president in 2024 because of a department policy not to prosecute sitting presidents.

In the third case, a state court jury in New York City convicted Trump in May 2024 with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment his then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.

Trump was sentenced to an unconditional discharge in that case shortly before being inaugurated as president.