Senate Democrats and advocacy groups are making the case for the full Senate to block Todd Blanche from being confirmed as US attorney general after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance his nomination Tuesday along party lines.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Blanche, currently President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general, “has aided and abetted the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States.”

Democratic colleagues described Blanche’s support for Trump’s $1.8 billion “weaponization fund,” his neglect of survivors abused by Jeffrey Epstein, and his obstruction of investigations into killings and misconduct by immigration agents, as evidence that he is, in the words of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), “probably the most discreditable person ever to seek the office of attorney general.”

Their criticisms were echoed by anticorruption watchdogs and rights groups, who argued that Blanche, who was previously Trump’s personal lawyer, was still acting like it even while serving as Acting Attorney General.

“Senators must urgently do the right thing and block Blanche," said Lisa Gilbert, the president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, who referred to him as a “Trump crony.”

“If we make Todd Blanche America’s lawyer at the head of the Justice Department,” Gilbert said, “we are accepting a man… who rubberstamped the corrupt IRS deal that Trump made with himself to shield all the Trumps and their businesses, not only from enforcement of any taxes they may have dodged or any fines or payments they may owe to American taxpayers, but from ‘any and all’ related consequences for violating any federal criminal or civil law.”

In recent days, Blanche committed to kill the so-called “slush fund” in exchange for support from Republican holdouts like Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (NC).

Gilbert and other co-chairs of the Not Above the Law Coalition—a collective of anticorruption advocacy groups—said that the agreement was “an unenforceable piece of paper that Trump never signed” and have warned that Blanche will revive efforts to pay government funds to Trump supporters, including those who took part in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, as soon as he is confirmed.

Following Tuesday’s vote, Cornyn said that Blanche “gave us the assurances that [the fund] was dead and would not be revived, and in this case we have no alternative but to take his word.”

Arisha Hatch, the executive director of the women’s organization UltraViolet, said the Republicans who voted for Blanche had also sided against “the majority of the American people, who demand integrity from our elected leaders and want everyone involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s network—including those who enabled it—to be held accountable.”

Epstein survivors have criticized Blanche for his role in overseeing the DOJ’s highly scrutinized release of files related to his alleged crimes, including the department’s exposure of victims’ private information and intimate photos while omitting information that identified prominent associates, including Trump himself.

At the urging of Tillis, Blanche held an hour-long meeting where he met with victims of Epstein’s abuse, who said in a letter published Tuesday that he appeared dismissive of their concerns.

“When we met with Todd Blanche, he interrupted us. He told us to ‘get to the point.’ He told us to report what happened to us to the FBI. We already have,” the survivors said. “Some of us have been reporting these crimes for decades. This was a check-the-box meeting designed to secure Senator Tillis’ vote.”

Maya Wiley, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, added that Blanche had “pursued baseless claims against civil rights organizations, sought sweeping access to state voter data, permitted a lawless [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” echoing criticisms about the DOJ’s withholding of evidence from Minnesota prosecutors related to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents.

Republicans control the Senate by a margin of 53-47 and are down a vote with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) currently absent, meaning that just three defectors could be enough to block Blanche’s confirmation, which could come to a vote within days.

“The Senate doesn’t need unanimous courage to block Blanche,” said Brett Edkins, managing director for policy and political affairs at the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America. "It needs a few Republicans willing to put country over party.”

Gilbert, Edkins, and the other co-chairs of the Not Above the Law coalition—Praveen Fernandes, vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center and Kelsey Herbert, campaign director at MoveOn—noted Blanche’s own statements that the DOJ, long described as a politically neutral agency, was not independent from the president, and a slip-up during a confirmation hearing during which he referred to himself as Trump’s lawyer.

“Todd Blanche has one client, and it’s not the American people,” the advocates said. "Committee Republicans just chose not to see it. The full Senate now has the final word, and every senator should use it to reject this nomination.”

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