The Most Important Nomination the Senate Has Ever Considered

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

How Far Is Too Far?

By formally nominating Todd Blanche as attorney general, President Trump set the stage for a late summer tableau in which Republican senators — in the midst of a midterm election — will be asked to ratify the unprecedented corruption of the DOJ by the Trump White House.

It fits a pattern of the Trump II presidency: move quickly, break things, and then get the compliant GOP Congress to paper it over later. But Trump has never asked his GOP allies on the Hill to bless misconduct as wide-ranging and extreme as that which has taken place at DOJ since Blanche became deputy attorney general, the department’s No. 2, in March 2025.

If, as I have argued, the politicization and weaponization of the DOJ is the single greatest threat to democracy of the Trump II presidency, then the Blanche confirmation hearing is arguably the most significant nomination that the Senate has ever considered.

Sanctioning everything that has happened up until now at the Justice Department would be a clear go-ahead from Republican senators to continue full steam ahead, or worse, for another 2 1/2 years. No accountability, no roadblocks, no pumping the brakes.

Blanche’s nomination comes immediately after he single-handedly purported to absolve Trump, whom he still treats as his client, from some $100 million in liabilities to the IRS. It follows the not-quite-dead-yet boondoggle of the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund.

Confirmation of Blanche wouldn’t just ratify the damage he has done in his two-plus months as acting attorney general — targeting, among others, James Comey (again), the Southern Poverty Law Center, John Brennan, Fani Willis, and Cassidy Hutchinson — but would serve as a stamp of approval for all the depredations of the Trump II DOJ.

The list is nearly endless:

• the attempted retributive prosecutions (Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook, Adam Schiff, Letitia James, Eric Swalwell, LaMonica McIver, and six sitting members of Congress);
• the defiance of court orders in cases involving the original Alien Enemies Act, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and countless other immigration cases;
• the coverups of the fatal ICE shootings in Minnesota;
• the vindictive purges of hundreds of prosecutors and FBI agents;
• the scheme to avoid the Senate confirmation process by lawlessly installing U.S. attorneys semi-permanently in some blue states;
• the unprecedented levels of prosecutorial misconduct, lack of candor, and basic incompetence that has wrecked the presumption of normality the government once enjoyed;
• the corruption and abandonment of the pardon process;
• the subversion of DOJ independence and allowing the department to be run out of the White House, including installing White House aides like Lindsey Halligan and Kurt Olsen in prosecutorial positions.

There’s no use in clutching pearls over what GOP senators will or will not do with the Blanche nomination. They have proven themselves time and again to be complicit at best as Trump rampages across civil society. But the Blanche confirmation process does give Democrats, who cannot by themselves block Blanche’s nomination, an election-year opportunity to publicly hold Blanche to account for the worst DOJ abuses, lawlessness, and grift.

Still, the urgent question is not how bad things have been at DOJ under Blanche, but how much worse things will get between now and January 2029 if he is confirmed.

Trump DOJ Watch

• Sun-Times: Controversial DOJ official Aakash Singh eyed by ‘Broadview 6’ was involved in Chicago deportation blitz, source says
• Democracy Docket: Dem senators “raise the alarm” over DOJ pullback on voter protections 
• ProPublica: Trump Administration Killed Criminal Investigation of GOP Senator’s Coal Companies

Pentagon Dodges Its Mormon Issue

After outcry from Utah’s two Republican senators that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not designated a Christian faith in a new Pentagon policy, DoD responded not by adding the “Christian” designation to LDS but by removing the Christian designation from the list for all denominations. Nonetheless, that seemed to satisfy Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who was the most vocal about the designation decision.

Mass Deportation Watch

• $100K Visa Fee: U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of Boston blocked President Donald Trump from charging employers a $100,000 fee if they hire foreign workers for specialized roles, ruling that it amounted to a unilateral tax without proper congressional approval.
• Denaturalization: The Trump administration moved to strip citizenship from 17 naturalized U.S. citizens accused of concealing previous crimes or committing fraud during the naturalization process

The Corruption: Don Jr. Edition

ProPublica: An Indian Billionaire Was Targeted by Trump. Then He Poured Money Into a Startup Secretly Backed by Donald Trump Jr.

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