President Trump said Wednesday evening he will formally nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to lead the Justice Department permanently, telling guests at a Rose Garden Club dinner at the White House that he would send the paperwork forward Thursday. White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino posted video of the announcement to social media late Wednesday night.
The move would install Trump's former personal defense lawyer atop the department on a permanent basis, ending a two-month acting tenure that has spanned the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and the collapse of a $1.8 billion settlement program the administration had hoped would compensate Trump allies.
What Trump said
"Tomorrow I'm instructing Dan [Scavino] and everybody else that's involved in that very complicated process, which is gonna go, I think, very quickly, that we are going to make him permanent Attorney General," Trump said in the video posted by Scavino, according to Fox News. The president told New York Post podcast host Miranda Devine on Tuesday that Blanche was his pick and that he was not weighing other candidates. "We put him as acting, and he's done a very good job," Trump told Devine.
The White House stopped short of formally announcing the nomination late Wednesday. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson, in a statement to Fox News Digital, called Blanche an "American patriot" who "fearlessly fought" what she called an "unprecedented lawfare campaign on behalf of President Trump" by Democrats.
Blanche's record
Blanche took over as acting attorney general in early April after Trump fired Pam Bondi, whose deputy he had been. Before joining the administration, he represented Trump in the New York hush-money case that produced a conviction on 34 felony counts, which Trump has denied. The Senate confirmed Blanche as deputy attorney general last year on a party-line 52-46 vote.
As acting attorney general, Blanche secured an April indictment of Comey over a photograph of seashells arranged to spell "86 47" — which the administration argues was a threat against the president's life. Comey has denied any threat. It was the department's second attempt to charge Comey after a federal judge in November threw out an earlier case against him and New York Attorney General Letitia James on the grounds that the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed.
Blanche also oversaw the rollout, and the partial retreat, of the $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund created to settle Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. After a court ruling temporarily blocked the Justice Department from implementing the fund, Blanche told House lawmakers earlier this week the department is "not moving forward" with it, CBS News reported. A separate provision shielding Trump's past tax returns from audit remains in place, according to CBS.
The Senate math
Blanche faces the same chamber that confirmed him 52-46 along party lines in 2025. CBS News reported that he has drawn intense pressure from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in recent days over the anti-weaponization fund. Republicans hold the majority needed to confirm a nominee without Democratic support, as they did for Blanche's deputy AG vote.
The counterview
NBC News framed Blanche's acting tenure as a record of launching high-profile investigations of the president's political foes, pointing to the Comey indictment and the compensation fund for Trump allies. Democratic critics have noted Blanche's prior role as Trump's criminal defense attorney to argue that elevating him permanently fuses the president's personal legal interests with the Justice Department's prosecutorial power. Fox News, by contrast, carried the White House framing of Blanche as a patriot fighting Democratic lawfare and reported Trump's praise of his performance. Blanche himself has denied the Comey case was politically motivated, telling CBS News last month it was driven by "local prosecutors" and "local agents" in North Carolina.
A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing date had not been set as of Wednesday night. Trump told Scavino's camera the confirmation process would move quickly.