2026年8月4日 / 美国东部时间上午11:04 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿讯——参议院司法委员会于周二将托德·布兰奇的司法部长提名提交至全院参议院投票，为特朗普总统提名的这位司法部领导人扫清了关键障碍。
由共和党掌控的该委员会以12票赞成、10票反对的党派立场投票推进了布兰奇的提名。这位代理司法部长克服了得克萨斯州共和党参议员约翰·科宁和北卡罗来纳州共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯对18亿美元基金的质疑，最终赢得了两人的支持。该基金旨在向所谓遭受政府“政治迫害”的受害者提供赔偿。
蒂利斯和科宁对该计划以及一项授予总统税务审计豁免权的全面协议的担忧曾险些破坏布兰奇的提名。但在周日晚间，经过数周与两位参议员的谈判，布兰奇发布了一项新指令，撤销了他最初设立“反政治迫害”基金的命令，并明确表示，税务豁免条款仅适用于此前年度税务申报的可能审计，且仅针对特朗普先生、他的两个长子以及特朗普集团。
布兰奇的这一指令并未修改特朗普今年5月与美国国税局达成的和解协议条款，该协议旨在解决前政府承包商泄露特朗普税务记录引发的民事诉讼。特朗普总统仍对“反政治迫害”基金表示支持，并于周六威胁称，如果科宁和蒂利斯反对布兰奇出任司法部长，他将重启该基金。
尽管如此，科宁和蒂利斯在周一的联合声明中表示，他们对正式终止该基金的指令感到“欣慰”。两位参议员称，司法部承认税务豁免协议存在局限性，这解决了多名共和党同僚的担忧。
“我们要感谢布兰奇先生及其团队与我们就此展开合作，我们期待很快投票支持他在参议院司法委员会的提名获得推进，”科宁和蒂利斯说道。
在司法委员会听证会上的发言中，两位参议员为他们为支持布兰奇提名而提出的条款以及他们从司法部获得的承诺进行了辩护。
“鉴于与布兰奇先生达成的这项协议，我期望司法部在未来的诉讼中信守承诺，”科宁说道，并补充道，他投票推进布兰奇的提名“不仅仅是针对这份文件。我们需要司法部拥有一个稳定的领导人，布兰奇先生有机会做到这一点。”
他表示，司法部“不需要一名临时的、未经确认的提名人担任我国最高执法官员”。
随着布兰奇的司法部长提名在参议院司法委员会获得推进，该提名将提交至全院参议院进行投票。确认他出任该职位仅需简单多数票即可通过。
司法委员会主席、爱荷华州共和党人查克·格拉斯利感谢科宁和蒂利斯与司法部合作，解决了对特朗普与美国国税局达成的豁免协议以及“反政治迫害”基金的担忧。
“蒂利斯和科宁对政府行政部门的要求不过是常识而已，”他说道，并补充道，“花了这么长时间才明确税务协议的局限性，这简直是一种耻辱。”
格拉斯利表示，自布兰奇临时执掌司法部以来，该部门“在他的领导下蓬勃发展”。
“今天，我不仅投票支持推进托德·布兰奇的提名，我也是在为美国人民的安全投票，”他说道。
但司法委员会资深民主党议员、来自伊利诺伊州的参议员迪克·德宾表示，布兰奇“没有资格”领导司法部，并指责这位代理司法部长试图通过解雇长期任职官员，并用“不合格的‘让美国再次伟大’阵营忠实支持者”取代他们，从而重塑司法部，这些人只会“橡皮图章式”地批准特朗普总统的腐败行为。
“对大多数人来说，他的话不足以让人信服，就连我的一些共和党朋友也不相信。即便他在宣誓下的承诺也不够可信，”德宾说道，他强调了参议员们要求布兰奇将其承诺书面化的诉求。
这位伊利诺伊州民主党议员强调，布兰奇关于特朗普与美国国税局和解协议的新指令并未由包括总统长子和特朗普集团在内的各方签署，因此“不具备强制执行效力”。德宾警告称，总统及其长子仍可起诉要求执行和解协议的原始条款，而“反政治迫害”基金在布兰奇获得确认后不久即可重启。
“我的共和党同僚们，在支持布兰奇出任副司法部长时，你们已经选择相信他了，”他说道，“17个月后的今天，他的忠诚所在已经毋庸置疑。”
自帕姆·邦迪于4月被免去美国最高执法官员一职以来，布兰奇一直担任代理司法部长。特朗普总统于6月提名布兰奇出任司法部长。
作为特朗普前私人辩护律师，布兰奇因司法部处理与 convicted sex offender 杰弗里·爱泼斯坦联邦调查相关文件的方式、去年与爱泼斯坦前女友吉斯莱恩·麦克斯韦的会面，以及司法部与特朗普达成的和解协议以解决其针对美国国税局的民事诉讼，而受到司法委员会成员的审查。
该和解协议包括设立18亿美元的“反政治迫害”基金，向声称因政治原因遭到联邦政府针对性打击的人提供赔偿。司法部还同意授予特朗普免受此前税务申报相关的国税局审计和调查的豁免权。
布兰奇此前曾表示司法部不会推进“反政治迫害”计划，但直到周日，他都拒绝书面确认该计划已终止，这引发了人们对该计划是否会以其他形式重启的质疑。
在确认听证会上被参议员追问该基金的现状时，布兰奇称其“已经终结”且“不复存在”。但在给参议员的书面答复中，他拒绝透露司法部内部就该计划进行的讨论信息。
由于共和党在司法委员会22个席位中占据12席，科宁和蒂利斯是布兰奇获得提名推进所需的关键票数。
蒂利斯本月早些时候曾表示，布兰奇需要与爱泼斯坦性交易案的幸存者会面，他才会投票支持推进布兰奇在司法委员会的提名。这位代理司法部长在司法部与一群幸存者进行了会面，并表示此次会面“富有成效”。
但该组织继续敦促科宁和蒂利斯投票反对布兰奇的提名，并在致两位参议员的信中称，在与代理司法部长的会面中，他“对泄露暴露幸存者身份和图像的可怕材料毫无悔意”。他们还表示，布兰奇“没有迹象表明他认为存在值得追查的调查线索，也没有迹象表明他打算在杰弗里·爱泼斯坦和吉斯莱恩·麦克斯韦之外寻求追责”。
当司法部公布其对爱泼斯坦和麦克斯韦调查的超过300万页文件时，布兰奇正担任副司法部长。麦克斯韦因性交易罪 currently serving a 20-year prison sentence。根据联邦法律《爱泼斯坦文件透明度法案》，文件披露是强制性要求。
但部分记录包含了未打码的幸存者姓名和个人信息。布兰奇承认司法部在保护幸存者信息方面“出现了失误”，并表示政府已采取措施纠正问题，包括迅速下架相关文件。
布兰奇去年还对麦克斯韦进行了为期两天的面谈，期间他询问了麦克斯韦与爱泼斯坦以及其圈子内其他有权势人士的关系。会面后不久，麦克斯韦从佛罗里达州塔拉哈西的一座低安全级别的联邦惩教设施，转移至德克萨斯州布莱恩的一座最低安全级别的监狱营地。
Senate Judiciary Committee advances Blanche’s nomination for attorney general
August 4, 2026 / 11:04 AM EDT / CBS News
Washington — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general to the Senate floor, clearing a key hurdle for President Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department.
The GOP-led panel voted 12-10 along party lines to advance Blanche’s nomination. The acting attorney general overcame skepticism from Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina over the $1.8 billion fund designed to compensate victims of alleged “weaponization” by the government and earned their support.
The concerns from Tillis and Cornyn over the program and a sweeping deal to grant the president immunity from tax audits threatened to derail Blanche’s nomination. But late Sunday, following weeks of negotiations with the senators, Blanche issued a new order that rescinded his initial directive creating the “anti-weaponization” fund and clarified that the immunity provision covers only potential audits of previous years’ tax returns and applies only to Mr. Trump, his two oldest sons and the Trump Organization.
The order from Blanche does not modify the terms of the settlement agreement that Mr. Trump reached with the IRS in May to resolve a civil lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns by a former government contractor. The president has continued to express support for the “anti-weaponization” fund and threatened Saturday to revive it if Cornyn and Tillis opposed Blanche as attorney general.
Still, Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement Monday that they are “pleased” with the formal order ending the fund. The Justice Department’s acknowledgement of the limits of the tax immunity deal addresses concerns from multiple GOP colleagues, the two senators said.
“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn and Tillis said.
In remarks during the Judiciary Committee’s hearing, the two senators defended the terms they laid out in order to support Blanche’s nomination and the commitments they secured from the Justice Department.
“Given this agreement with Mr. Blanche, I expect the department to live up to this in future litigation,” Cornyn said, adding that his vote to advance Blanche’s nomination “goes beyond this document. We need a stabilizing force at the Department of Justice and Mr. Blanche deserves the opportunity to provide that.”
The department, he said, “does not need a temporary, unconfirmed nominee as our nation’s top law enforcement officer.”
With Blanche’s nomination for attorney general advancing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it heads to the full Senate for a vote. A simple majority is needed to confirm him to the post.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, thanked Cornyn and Tillis for working with the Justice Department to address concerns about Mr. Trump’s immunity deal with the IRS and the “anti-weaponization” fund.
“It’s just common sense, what Tillis and Cornyn are asking out of the executive branch of government,” he said, adding “it’s a crime that it took so long” to secure clarifications on the limits of the tax deal.
Grassley said that since Blanche took the helm of the Justice Department in a temporary capacity, it has “thrived under his leadership.”
“Today, I’m not only voting to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination, I’m voting for the safety of the American people,” he said.
But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said Blanche “has no business” leading the Justice Department, and he accused the acting attorney general of attempting to reshape the department by firing longtime officials and replacing them “with unqualified MAGA loyalists who will rubber-stamp President Trump’s corruption.”
“His word is not enough for most, not even for some of my Republican friends. Even his word under oath is not credible enough,” Durbin said, highlighting demands from senators that Blanche commit his promises to writing.
The Illinois Democrat stressed that Blanche’s new orders regarding the settlement agreement between Mr. Trump and the IRS are not signed by the parties — which include the president’s two oldest sons and the Trump Organization — and are therefore “unenforceable.” The president and his sons could still sue to enforce the original terms of the deal, and the “anti-weaponization” fund can be revived shortly after Blanche is confirmed, Durbin warned.
“To my Republican colleagues, you gave Mr. Blanche the benefit of the doubt when you supported his nomination to be deputy attorney general,” he said. “Seventeen months later, there is no doubt where his loyalty will lie.”
Blanche has been serving as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi was removed as the nation’s top law enforcement officer in April. Mr. Trump nominated Blanche for attorney general in June.
A former personal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump, Blanche came under scrutiny from members of the Judiciary Committee over the Justice Department’s handling of the release of files related to the federal investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his meeting last year with Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and the department’s settlement with Mr. Trump to resolve his civil lawsuit against the IRS.
That deal included the creation of the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that would provide payments to people who claimed they were targeted by the federal government for political reasons. The Justice Department also had agreed to grant Mr. Trump immunity from IRS audits and investigations related to prior tax returns.
Blanche had said before that the Justice Department is not moving forward with the “anti-weaponization” program, but until Sunday, he declined to confirm in writing that it was dead, raising questions as to whether it could be revived in a different form.
When pressed by senators during his confirmation hearing about the status of the fund, Blanche said it’s “dead” and “doesn’t exist anymore.” But in written responses to senators, he declined to provide information about discussions within the Justice Department about the program.
With Republicans controlling 12 of the 22 seats on the Judiciary Committee, Cornyn and Tillis were key votes for Blanche to secure.
Tillis said earlier this month that Blanche needed to meet with survivors of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation before he voted to advance his nomination out of the Judiciary Committee. The acting attorney general met with a group of survivors at the Justice Department and said the meeting was “productive.”
But the group continued to urge Cornyn and Tillis to vote against Blanche’s nomination, saying in a letter to the senators that during their meeting with the acting attorney general, he “showed no remorse for the horrific release of materials that exposed survivors’ identities and images.” They also said he “gave no indication that he believed there were investigative leads worth pursuing, or that he intended to seek accountability beyond Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Blanche was serving as deputy attorney general when the Justice Department released more than 3 million pages of documents from its investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. The files’ disclosure was required under a federal law called the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
But some of the records contained survivors’ unredacted names and personal information. Blanche acknowledged “mistakes” were made by the Justice Department in its failure to shield survivors’ information and said the administration worked to rectify them, including by swiftly taking documents down.
Blanche also conducted a two-day interview with Maxwell last year, during which he asked Maxwell about her relationship with Epstein and other powerful people in his orbit. Shortly after their meeting, Maxwell was moved from a low-security federal correctional facility in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas.