BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee advances Todd Blanche's nomination for AG

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines on Tuesday to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General to the Senate Floor. The vote passed 12-10.

Blanche has been serving as acting Attorney General since April, when former Attorney General Pam Bondi resigned. Per Fox News, the final vote on Blanche’s nomination is expected to take place later in the week. 

Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis had been holding up the nomination, saying that they wanted a written assurance that the anti-weaponization fund set up by the Department of Justice was dead. Blanche formally rescinded the fund late Sunday, per NPR, and the two senators were appeased. They wrote on Monday that they “look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” and both voted for him on Tuesday. 

Cornyn and Tillis expressed gratitude in their statement for Blanche for working to address their concerns.

"From the outset, we were clear that we needed a written document addressing our concerns on the IRS audit agreement and the anti-weaponization fund that included constraining the scope of audit protection by limiting it to the parties of the Settlement Agreement and legally ending the anti-weaponization fund," they wrote.

 "We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share."