The delayed vote to advance the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is drawing sharp online reactions.
On Wednesday, reporters revealed that the Senate Judiciary Committee planned to delay the markup and vote on Blanche's nomination to be President Donald Trump's attorney general, with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee chair, saying he's working to help shore up votes to advance the nomination.
Online, reactions ranged from surprise to condemnation of the move by the Republican-led committee. Blanche's confirmation had been complicated by his handling of the Epstein files as deputy attorney general and his refusal to put in writing that Trump's anti-weaponization fund is dead.
"Republicans just took down the Blanche vote for tomorrow," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) reacted on Bluesky. "Shows how truthful Blanche was about the slush fund deal being dead, that he couldn't even convince Republicans. He's a slippery weasel, and that was a slippery deal."
"Simply have to lmao," wrote Max Steele, the senior director of communications for the gun-control advocacy group Everytown.
Capitol Hill reporter Scott MacFarlane shared a quote from Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), saying, "Republicans were forced to postpone Todd Blanche's confirmation vote because they knew he was too corrupt and untrustworthy to get enough votes."
Garcia's quote continued, "Blanche went from being Trump's personal lawyer to running the Epstein files cover-up and orchestrating billion-dollar slush funds."
Eric Michael Garcia, the Washington bureau chief at The Independent and MS NOW columnist, reacted on Bluesky by simply writing, "Oh my god!"
"What's really stunning here is that they went ahead with hearings when they didn't have the votes," noted Noah Berlatsky, a writer for the legal and political Substack Public Notice. "Everybody desperately tries to avoid this happening usually. If they don't have the votes, they don't hold hearings."
"Republicans just took down the Blanche vote for tomorrow. Shows how truthful Blanche was about the slush fund deal being dead, that he couldn’t even convince Republicans. He’s a slippery weasel, and that was a slippery deal," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) posted on Bluesky.
