President Donald Trump on Monday formally nominated his longtime loyalist and former personal defense lawyer Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general permanently.

Blanche has been serving as the nation’s top prosecutor in an acting capacity after Pam Bondi was fired by Trump in April. Blanche was Bondi’s deputy at the time.

The nomination has been sent to the Senate.

Blanche likely faces an uphill battle to get confirmed by senators who have castigated him over his handling of the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files, his efforts to prosecute officials who Trump has targeted for retaliation and the president’s “anti-weaponization” fund, which has drawn bipartisan scorn.
 
“Donald Trump has been engaged in the most corrupt enterprise in the history of the Presidency. Todd Blanche apparently has not noticed,” said Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Democratic Whip and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Still, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has expressed optimism that Blanche has enough support to win confirmation.

“Blanche is well-qualified and has shown his dedication to restoring law and order across our country,” Grassley said in a statement announcing that the Senate received Trump’s nomination. “The Senate Judiciary Committee’s work to process Blanche’s nomination is underway.”

Blanche came under renewed scrutiny when he pushed for a nearly $1.8 billion settlement fund for people seeking damages from the federal government, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. After a court order temporarily blocking it and fierce criticism from lawmakers in his own party, Blanche reversed course on the fund and said it would not be pursued.

Prior to the settlement fund controversy, Bondi and Blanche have faced backlash over the Epstein files from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle during their tenure in the Department of Justice.

As part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ was required to publish unclassified material related to the prosecution of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Members of Congress accused both of mishandling the department’s Epstein-related documents by failing to protect the names and images of survivors, omitting the identities of some prominent figures and surveilling their search history of the files.

When she sat before the House Oversight Committee in May, Bondi acknowledged redaction errors but appeared to blame Blanche for the botched release of the Epstein files.

“As the head of a large Department with broad responsibilities, I did not lead every aspect of this effort or conduct that document review myself,” Bondi said. “I delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.”

Bondi later denied blaming Blanche and praised him as “an incredible Attorney General” for what she characterized as a complicated and laborious task.

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