Trump threatens to withdraw attorney general nomination amid GOP impasse
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw the nomination of Todd Blanche to be attorney general until after the midterms on Thursday, amid an intra-Republican impasse over the Justice Department’s settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against…
Assessment
A sitting president is publicly threatening to pull his own attorney general nominee over a dispute within his party about a Justice Department settlement. The impasse centers on a $1.8 billion compensation fund tied to claims of government weaponization, which two Republican senators have objected to. The nomination delay signals deeper fractures between the White House and Senate Republicans over how to handle the legacy of the prior administration. The outcome will test whether the president can enforce party discipline or whether Senate Republicans will assert independence on Justice Department policy.