President Trump may have found the cleanest answer yet to the Senate Republicans trying to hold up Todd Blanche.
Keep Blanche exactly where he is.
Blanche is not some random White House aide temporarily dropped into the top job. He is the Senate-confirmed Deputy Attorney General, and federal law puts him first in line when the Attorney General’s office is vacant.
The legal point behind President Trump’s hardball option is laid out in this clip:
🚨 JUST IN: It's been confirmed that President Trump can keep Todd Blanche as Acting Attorney General PERMANENTLY no matter HOW MUCH John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) obstruct his nomination
47 is REFUSING to cave to the RINOs' demands, saying he might just temporarily… pic.twitter.com/PC6elFk0QU
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 31, 2026
This is where the obstruction campaign runs into the actual statute.
The official U.S. Code says that when the Attorney General’s office is vacant, the Deputy Attorney General may exercise all the duties of that office. The same provision identifies the deputy as the Attorney General’s first assistant.
The statute also sets the next steps if neither the Attorney General nor the deputy is available, sending the duties to the Associate Attorney General and then permitting a further Justice Department succession order. Congress therefore wrote a specific chain for this exact department instead of leaving the job to an improvised White House designation.
Unlike the Federal Vacancies Reform Act route used for many temporary appointees, Section 508 does not contain the familiar acting-service clock. Blanche is serving by virtue of his confirmed position as deputy and the Justice Department’s own succession law.
The Congressional Research Service explains that courts have recognized Section 508 as an independent source of authority for a Deputy Attorney General to perform the Attorney General’s duties. The report specifically discusses a case in which a court upheld an acting Attorney General’s actions after the older Vacancies Act time limit had expired because Section 508 separately authorized the deputy’s service.
That does not transform Blanche into a Senate-confirmed Attorney General. It means he can continue exercising the office’s duties as Acting Attorney General while the vacancy remains, potentially for the rest of President Trump’s term, unless a court imposes a limit that Congress did not write into Section 508.
President Trump nominated Blanche for the permanent job on June 8.
The White House says Blanche has won support from a broad coalition of law enforcement groups, state attorneys general, former Justice Department officials and members of Congress. Its July 14 endorsement roundup describes him as a veteran prosecutor and defense attorney already leading crackdowns on cartels, transnational gangs, violent crime and fraud.