Todd Blanche is now Attorney General of the United States. By a vote of 50-49, the Senate confirmed him early in the morning of August 8.
His confirmation was assured when, a day earlier, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy went to the Senate floor to deliver his verdict on Blanche’s nomination. In a six-minute speech, Cassidy detailed how he had approached his decision and set aside his feelings about President Trump to focus on the nominee and what is best for the American people.
Self-aggrandizing. Filled with pathos and senatorial gravitas. A moment made for the cameras.
Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and others in the pantheon of great orators of the Senate have nothing to worry about. Cassidy’s speech was neither rhetorically powerful nor stateman-like.
If it is remembered at all, it will be remembered only as the latest example of what has become all too familiar in the Trump era, the culminating moment in another drama of what Politico labels “The GOP’s Big Fold.”
Coming from Cassidy, who trotted out this act before when he caved and voted to confirm Robert Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Services, it was “par for the course for congressional Republicans who, in recent years, have shown a proclivity for taking bold, theatrical stands before meekly capitulating in the face of political pressure — particularly from President Donald Trump.”
No profiles in courage there.
Before saying more about Cassidy’s speech, it is noteworthy that he voted to support someone to be Attorney General of the United States who has said clearly and repeatedly that he will take his marching orders from the president and direct his department to fulfill the president’s agenda.
Indeed, during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blanche let the cat out of the bag when he said, “I’m his (Trump’s) lawyer,” before catching his Freudian slip and saying he “was his lawyer.”
However, his actions suggest that the present tense he first used is a more accurate description of how Blanche sees his job.
As the Washington Post notes, “Since becoming acting attorney general, Blanche has defended the president’s ‘right’ to intervene in criminal investigations and his controversial pardons of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has breathed new life into probes of Trump critics, including investigations of former FBI Director James B. Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, and Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide from the president’s first term who testified against him in Congress.”
And Blanche approved the creation of the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund and the tax audit immunity deal for the president, his family, and his businesses.
If that were not enough to prove that Blanche should not have been confirmed, in July the New York City Bar Association laid out a thorough bill of particulars against him. It cited the United States Department of Justice’s Justice Manual’s requirement that “The Attorney General must ensure that the legal judgments of the Department of Justice are ‘impartial and insulated from political influence’ so that the Department’s ‘investigatory and prosecutorial powers [are] exercised free from partisan consideration.’”
The NYC Bar listed five areas, “politically motivated prosecutions, violations of constitutional rights and court orders, misplaced loyalty to the President, the weakening of the Department of Justice, and questions of professional ethics,” in which Blanche has failed to do what is required of the Attorney General.
It concluded that “Mr. Blanche’s record—particularly the actions he has undertaken as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General—conclusively demonstrates his lack of commitment to the integrity, professionalism and independence that the Senate should require and the American people should expect of the highest law enforcement official in the land.”
None of that got in the way of Senator Cassidy’s public capitulation. His speech conveyed the vain hope that if he were Senate-confirmed, Blanche would have “greater leverage to push for things that should be pushed for.”
To his credit, Cassidy acknowledged what he called “concerns” raised about Blanche during the confirmation process, including his approval of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and tax immunity deal and his use of the Justice Department as a tool of “lawfare.” In addition, Cassidy conceded that President Trump can be “unrelenting” in his pursuit of his political enemies, but that in itself was not Blanche’s problem. It, Cassidy observed, “would be true no matter who the Attorney General is.”
Pivoting, Cassidy praised Blanche for “know(ing) the law and (as) a hands-on administrator.” Cassidy referencing former Attorney General Bill Barr, who said, “’Mr. Blanche will run the Department of Justice under President Trump…and because of his previous attorney-client relationship with the president, Mr. Blanche will be precisely the person to push back on President Trump.’”
In the end, Cassidy waved the white flag of surrender by characterizing his choice as between Blanche and “another acting-Attorney General” who “may not do the job as well as Mr. Blanche.” Cassidy then choked up, recounting in a moment of public self-pity, “I’ll be criticized for this vote. So, what’s new?”
He’s right. “What’s new,” about Cassidy’s capitulation?
The answer: nothing.
But for him, Robert Kennedy would not be at the Department of Health and Human Services, tearing down America’s public health infrastructure and presiding over a measles epidemic and the spread of food-borne illnesses.
On February 4, 2025, Cassidy delivered another speech on the Senate floor explaining why he would vote for Kennedy’s confirmation. “It was,” Cassidy claimed in a preview of what would happen with Blanche, “a decision I studied exhaustively. I took very seriously.”
He explained that he had received commitments from Kennedy and the administration, including “that he and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative working relationship…. (and) that he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems. If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.”
“But my support<’ Cassidy added, “is built on assurances that this will not have to be a concern and that he and I can work together to build an agenda to make America healthy again.”
Four months after Cassidy’s speech, Kennedy fired everyone then serving on the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with a rogues’ gallery of vaccine skeptics. And as NPR reports, “The revamped panel then declined to recommend COVID-19 vaccines even for high-risk populations and voted to stop recommending most newborn hepatitis B shots. Separately, under Kennedy, the administration also narrowed the childhood vaccine schedule.”
Cassidy’s reaction: “Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”
How did that work out, Senator?
As the old saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Shame on you, Senator Cassidy, for making us live through the staged drama of another Republican capitulation and for leaving the American people with an Attorney General who, as the NYC Bar put it, “is unfit to lead the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Austin D. Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. He is an internationally renowned scholar whose interdisciplinary work examines law in relation to culture, violence, and the liberal arts. His academic foundation includes a B.A. from Providence College (1969), an M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) from the University of Wisconsin, and a J.D. from Yale Law School (1988). He has also received honorary degrees, including an LL.D. from Providence College (2008) and an A.M. from Amherst College (1984). Sarat has also been awarded the Jeffrey B. Ferguson Memorial Teaching Prize at Amherst in 2022 and the Ronald Pipkin Service Award as well as many others