Politics

Trump may pull Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general, he says

Trump may pull Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general, he says

With Todd Blanche's AG nomination stalled in the Senate, President Trump now says he may temporarily withdraw it and resubmit his name after the midterm elections. LiveNOW's Mike Pache brings FOX News correspondent David Spunt into the conversation to discuss.

President Donald Trump may pull acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination for the permanent post over opposition to Trump’s demands that he and his family members be immune from tax audits.

The opposition is coming from Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, both members of Trump’s own party, as well as every Democrat in the Senate.

Trump said in a social media post Thursday that he might pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it after Cornyn and Tillis leave office next year. Both have expressed concerns about the controversial settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, which a judge denounced as an exercise in self-dealing.

There was supposed to be a committee vote this week to advance Blanche’s nomination, but it was delayed after failed negotiations between the Justice Department and the Senate.

"I think as far as Blanche and the Department of Justice, we were pretty much on the same page," Cornyn said Thursday. "But then when the president got wind of it, he wasn’t willing to go along with it."

FILE: US President Donald Trump listens as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, shortly after a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinne

Cornyn and Tillis have said they won’t back Blanche’s nomination without additional assurances in writing about the settlement, which included a deal to drop tax claims against the president and a now-scrapped plan to create a $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" meant to compensate Trump allies.

In a social media post Thursday, Cornyn said the president is "mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis."

While the Justice Department dropped plans for the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" after bipartisan outrage about the potential of payouts going to violent Jan. 6 rioters, officials have said that another piece of the settlement — granting Trump and members of his family immunity from tax audits — remains in place.