Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, declined Wednesday to commit to voting for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, saying he still had concerns after a second day of confirmation testimony and leaving President Trump's nominee one Republican defection from failure on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cornyn's public wavering, paired with continued silence from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., raised the prospect that Blanche, Trump's former personal criminal-defense lawyer, could be voted down in a panel where the Republican margin narrowed last weekend after the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. NBC News reported that a single Republican defection would now block the confirmation.

What Cornyn said

"Well, I don't know what other information's gonna be coming in," Cornyn told reporters after questioning Blanche, according to Fox News. "The hearing is not even halfway done. And so, you know, I don't have to make a decision now, so I'm not." Speaking separately to CNN, Cornyn said he continues "to have some concerns" and was not "going to make any decisions at this point," the BBC reported.

Cornyn's central objection is the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund Blanche approved as part of the Internal Revenue Service settlement a federal judge voided this week. Blanche told the committee the fund was not moving forward, but conceded the underlying settlement remained "enforceable." Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, pressed him for a categorical answer: "You have no reason to believe that the so-called weaponisation fund will continue because of the settlement, agreement, is that correct?" Blanche replied, "I am confident it will not."

Asked whether Blanche's stumble in describing himself as Trump's former lawyer troubled him, Cornyn told Fox News, "I think he's trying to walk a very difficult line."

The Epstein apology

Under questioning from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Blanche apologized to survivors of Jeffrey Epstein for the Justice Department's handling of the released files. "I will absolutely say that any mistake that we made should not have been made," Blanche told the committee, per the BBC. "And I very much. I very much apologise."

Blanche said "approximately 1%" of redactions across the roughly six million pages had to be corrected and described the release as a "Herculean task." About a dozen women wearing T-shirts printed with images of redacted files sat behind him.

Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed Blanche on what he called "problematic redactions," "insufficient effort" on investigative leads and a "refusal to meet with victims," as well as the transfer of Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower-security prison.

The Democratic case

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the committee's ranking Democrat, was blunt. "Anyone who can represent a known pathological liar like Donald Trump can have no integrity," Durbin said, according to Fox News. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., allowed that Blanche was "qualified … as someone who has been a prosecutor," but said the nominee "should have known better than to be willing to tolerate or support the weaponization of the department."

The countervailing signal

Tillis, whose objections have tracked Cornyn's, indicated Wednesday he was inclined to back Blanche after the nominee committed to work on legislation permanently ending the anti-weaponization fund. "I think that's a pretty strong indication that he and the administration are OK with" killing the fund, Tillis told Fox News. Earlier in the hearing he had pressed Blanche for an "agreed to piece of text, coming from the administration, that just renders this thing dead, gone," the BBC reported. If Tillis holds, Blanche can absorb a Cornyn no, provided every other Republican falls in line, math the White House whip operation was still testing at press time.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to vote in the coming days on whether to send the nomination to the full Senate.