White House Sends Todd Blanche Nomination to Senate for Attorney General

The White House on Monday formally sent President Donald Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche to the Senate to be attorney general, moving the Justice Department’s acting leader into the confirmation process for the government’s top law enforcement post.

A presidential action dated June 8 and published by the White House said a nomination was sent to the Senate for “Todd Blanche, of Florida, to be Attorney General.”

The step matters because Blanche is already running the Justice Department in an acting capacity. The formal transmission does not confirm him to the job, but it starts the Senate process for making him the permanent head of the department. Attorney general nominations typically go first to the Senate Judiciary Committee before any vote by the full Senate.

Blanche is not new to the department. The Justice Department lists him as its 40th deputy attorney general, the No. 2 post at DOJ. He was confirmed by the Senate for that job on March 5, 2025, according to AP’s reporting on the confirmation. After Attorney General Pam Bondi was removed on April 2, 2026, Blanche became acting attorney general, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

Trump had already signaled the move last week. At a White House event on June 3, he said of Blanche, “We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” according to AP.

Blanche’s nomination is likely to draw particular attention because of his path to the job. Before joining the department, he was a federal prosecutor and later a private criminal defense lawyer. In private practice, he represented Trump in multiple criminal matters before entering the administration, a background that has already made recusal and conflict questions a point of scrutiny during his tenure at DOJ.

One recent flashpoint came over the department’s proposed $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which DOJ announced on May 18. Blanche later told a House Appropriations subcommittee on June 2 that the department had dropped the idea, saying, “We are not moving forward with the fund, period.”

That episode offered an early example of the kind of oversight questions that may follow Blanche into the confirmation process, though the White House’s action Monday dealt only with the formal nomination itself.

The Senate will now take up Blanche’s nomination under its normal advice-and-consent process. For attorney general nominees, that generally means initial consideration by the Judiciary Committee, which handles nominations for the Justice Department and federal courts, before any possible vote on the Senate floor.

If confirmed, Blanche would move from serving temporarily atop the department to leading it on a permanent basis. For now, Monday’s action marks the official handoff from the White House to the Senate.