U.S. Senate confirms Todd Blanche as attorney general

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Senate voted early Saturday to confirm Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Blanche. All Republicans in the chamber supported Blanche's nomination, except for Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Blanche has been a federal prosecutor and personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump. He has served as deputy attorney general since March 2025 and acting attorney general since April this year, following the dismissal of Pam Bondi.

Blanche's nomination as attorney general had faced resistance from within the Republican Party over a controversial Justice Department proposal to establish a nearly 1.8-billion-U.S.-dollar "anti-weaponization fund" for alleged victims of politically motivated prosecutions. Critics feared the fund could be used to compensate Trump supporters prosecuted for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Following an intense backlash from Republican senators and a decisive blow from the federal judiciary, Blanche told a House appropriations subcommittee hearing in June that the Department of Justice abandoned the "anti-weaponization fund," saying, "We're not moving forward with the fund."

The U.S. attorney general is the country's top law enforcement officer and leads the Department of Justice.