Todd Blanche told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the May 19 release order was still in effect, a response that sharpened doubts about whether he should be confirmed as attorney general. He gave that answer while already serving as acting attorney general.
The question landed because Blanche signed the order himself. In recent days, Chris Coons asked whether it remained in force, and Blanche answered, “Yes.” Richard Durbin then pressed him on whether it was appropriate to sign a document that sought criminal immunity for his former client and his family. Blanche declined to discuss internal deliberations, saying, “It would be inappropriate for me to comment on internal deliberations that may or may not have occurred in conjunction with any official act by the Department of Justice.” He added, “The document speaks for itself and does not extend to potential criminal charges.”
The order matters because it was not limited to the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund at the center of the dispute. It also extended benefits to Donald Trump, his family, businesses and affiliates, including IRS and other government immunity. That made the document far broader than a simple settlement over money, and it is why the senators’ written questions cut to the heart of Blanche’s fitness for a permanent Justice Department role.
The controversy has only grown more pointed because Blanche’s own explanation does not square neatly with the way a federal judge treated the settlement. Kathleen M. Williams effectively prohibited Donald Trump from relying on the agreement, saying the lawsuit was brought for an improper purpose to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a settlement that had no viable basis in law or fact. Yet Blanche said the release order remained in effect anyway, leaving a live mismatch between what the Justice Department insisted on paper and what the court would allow Trump to use in practice.
That split is the reason Blanche’s confirmation fight has become more than a routine review of a nominee’s record. He is not being asked about an abstract legal theory. He is being asked about a document he signed on May 19, why it went beyond the $1.776 billion fund, and why it appeared to grant broad protection to a former client while he was still arguing for a permanent post at the Justice Department. Last week, John Cornyn had already raised the release order during the hearings; now the written questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members have put Blanche’s answer on the record.
Blanche also enters the fight with a record that senators already know well. He was Donald Trump’s lead lawyer in the New York state prosecution that ended in 34 felony counts. That history is not separate from the new questions. It is the context that gives them force, because the issue is no longer only whether Blanche can explain the release order. It is whether a person who signed it can persuade senators that he will put the office ahead of the client.
The immediate next step is the confirmation decision itself, and Blanche’s answer has made that vote harder to predict. If senators decide the May 19 order showed judgment too closely tied to Trump, the acting attorney general may find that the document he signed becomes the reason he does not get the job permanently.
