President Trump announced that he would be naming Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as the permanent director of the DOJ.
“Tomorrow I’m instructing Dan and everybody else that’s involved in the very complicated process, which is going to be, I think, very quickly, that we are going to make him permanent Attorney General,” Trump said on Wednesday.
Responding to the announcement, Blanche said, “Obviously, I’m honored and humbled that the president indicated he was going to nominate me.”
“I will work with the senators. I have a good relationship with the Senate, both sides,” he added. “I don’t say no to phone calls. I’ll meet with anybody that wants to meet with me.” Blanche further stated, “I’m looking forward to working with the senators and getting them the information they need through the confirmation process.”
Blanche recently announced that the DOJ’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” would not proceed.
“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said during a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. “The reasons for the fund — it’s something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund … remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund.”
The announcement followed a district court judge’s ruling against the fund. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema wrote in the order that the DOJ is enjoined from “taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund.”
