Humiliated Republican holds Trump card ... with final act that could bury the President's prized Cabinet pick

By BREANNE DEPPISCH, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 21:16, 16 July 2026 | Updated: 21:25, 16 July 2026 Inside the white-marbled halls of the Hart Senate Office Building in the shadow of the US Capitol, a Texas-sized mutiny is brewing.  The issue at hand is the confirmation of acting attorney general Todd Blanche, Trump's hard-charging former personal lawyer and nominee to permanently lead the Justice Department in the wake of Pam Bondi's dismissal. Donald Trump has made his second term about vengeance. But in an especially ironic twist, it's a longtime Republican senator who Trump vanquished that now sits poised to return it. What's more, he has little left to lose in exacting it. That lawmaker, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, used his time during Blanche's confirmation hearing this week to press Blanche about a $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization fund' to pay out so-called victims of 'lawfare' by the Justice Department under previous administrations.  It's one of two issues Cornyn has cited as concerning.  'It is a moot issue, meaning there is no weaponization fund,' Blanche told Cornyn in response to his questioning about the $1.8 billion pot of funding.  The Texan also grilled Blanche about a sweeping tax immunity agreement for Trump and members of his family, noting at one point that Trump 'has not agreed in writing' to doing away with the fund. In June, Cornyn told the New York Times the tax exemption was 'a terrible mistake.'  But Blanche's responses did little to assuage Cornyn, a former Texas State Supreme Court judge, who pointed repeatedly during the hearing to a poster behind him that contained the text of Trump's tax deal.  Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Cornyn (pictured) said he is undecided about voting to confirm Blanche to head up DOJ, threatening his path to a full floor vote  'I continue to have some concerns,' Cornyn told CNN's Manu Raju of Blanche's confirmation - a sentiment he echoed, both on-camera and off, as the hearing dragged into its fifth hour.  'I don't have to make a decision until the vote is called, so I'm not ready to make the decision now,' Cornyn said after the first of the two-day confirmation wrapped. Just days earlier, Republicans on the panel could have shrugged off Cornyn's opposition and proceeded to advance Blanche to the full Senate floor for a vote.  But the sudden death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has abruptly shifted the calculus - leaving the Senate Judiciary Committee with a razor-thin majority and Republican members in a near-term state of flux.  To advance Blanche's nomination out of committee, Senate Republicans will now need the 'yes' vote of every single Republican on the panel. As of now, a person familiar with the proceedings told the Daily Mail, the committee 'very strongly' has ten. Cornyn holds a pivotal vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which, as of writing, is comprised of 21 members, including ten Democrats and 11 Republicans.  The slimmer majority means that Republicans on the panel cannot afford even a single defection. A 'no' vote from Cornyn would leave the panel hopelessly deadlocked, snarling the process by which they would advance Blanche out of committee and to the full Senate floor for a vote. Cornyn 'doesn't trust Todd Blanche, and he shouldn't,' Anthony Coley, a former Justice Department official who served under the Biden administration, told the Daily Mail. 'The fact that Blanche even agreed to the slush fund in the first place proves that Blanche doesn't have the judgment or the independence required to be the nation's attorney general.' Wednesday capped what amounted to a tense, day-long testimony from Blanche, who fielded tough questions from Democrats and Republicans alike on a host of controversial actions the Justice Department has taken in Trump's second term.  Among them, the Justice Department's botched release of the release of the Epstein files, his personal loyalty to Trump, and concerns about carrying out politically motivated investigations or penalizing career officials who refused to carry out these marching orders.  Cornyn is one of two Senate Republicans who had expressed serious reservations about Blanche's confirmation in recent weeks.  The other, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is retiring by choice after getting in Trump's crosshairs, had seemed to warm on Blanche's confirmation following a one-on-one meeting he held with the acting attorney general.  But as the hearing stretched into its second day, Tillis, too, said he was planning to withhold his vote of approval until Blanche met with Epstein survivors. Blanche has faced criticism for his handling of the Epstein files and actions at DOJ, including overseeing a botched release of partially unredacted files, ordering the transfer of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison, and refusing to meet with any of the victims, including at least ten who were present in the audience during his testimony. Tillis said that Blanche's meeting with the survivors will be a 'very important part' of his vote. 'I expect that meeting to occur before I'm willing to vote out of this committee, and I'm trying to get to yes,' he said on Thursday. Donald Trump and his then-lawyer, Todd Blanche, appear outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City Tillis (pictured) said that Blanche's meeting with the survivors will be a 'very important part' of his vote Things could change in the days ahead. Republicans stressed that Wednesday's testimony was just the first in a two-day confirmation hearing for Blanche, whose committee vote will likely be scheduled next week.  But it's unclear when Graham will be replaced on the panel, or who will be tapped to replace him, as interviews with multiple Senate staffers and other individuals with knowledge of the process made clear.  That means Cornyn, a four-term Senate stalwart who very publicly soured on Trump in the wake of his stinging primary defeat, now holds an outsize amount of power in the process.  And while Cornyn stressed that he's not yet made a decision on whether he will support Blanche, telling CNN and other outlets that he plans to wait until the end of the hearings to begin considering how he'll vote, the lame duck senator now has the power to theoretically inject a Texas-sized hurdle into the process. This could be painful for Trump, who has been without a Senate-confirmed attorney general since April.  But for Cornyn, who lamented Trump's demands for 'slavish' loyalty in a recent interview, it would be the ultimate exit move. Cornyn told the outlet that, in his final months as a 'lame duck' senator, he'd reserve the right to choose where he is 'going to - or going to not - defer' to Trump. 'With the untimely death of Sen Lindsey Graham, [Cornyn] also has to be thinking about his place in history,' Coley, the former DOJ official, added.  'Deep down, he knows it's simply wrong to leave any door open that could allow taxpayer dollars to compensate Jan 6 rioters. In the end, that question of conscience may be the greatest obstacle to Todd Blanche's confirmation.'